City pitches for new sporting first

Dongsheng bids to be China's international baseball town

Zhongshan is a city that has produced several of China's sporting firsts.

One of them is Rong Guotuan, who became China's first ever world table tennis champion when he won the men's singles title at the 1959 World Table Tennis Championships in Dortmund. Another is Jiang Jialiang, who also ruled the table tennis world in the early 1980s before the sport joined the Olympic family at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Jiang led China to the team title at the 1983, 1985 and 1987 world championships and won the singles title in 1985 and 1987.