All hands on deck for 2021 Summer Universiade

Officials pledge full effort so event is a "complete success"

Chengdu, capital city of Southwest China's Sichuan province, is aiming to build advanced infrastructure and offer world-class services for the 31st Summer Universiade in 2021, local officials said.

Chengdu will be the third city on the Chinese mainland to host the Universiade Summer Games, after Beijing and Shenzhen.

Local officials said the city will make an all-out effort to host the 31st Summer Universiade in 2021. The city plans to offer world-class services and build the best communication and competition platform for college students around the globe.

The Summer Universiade is an international university sports and cultural event staged every two years.

Based on the themes of "eco-friendly, intelligent, vigorous and sharing", the event is expected to attract over 10,000 athletes, instructors, referees and officials from over 170 countries and regions.

The Summer Universiade will include 18 competition games with 15 compulsory sports including track and field, diving, basketball, volleyball, swimming and three selective sports: martial arts, racing boat and shooting.

The main field of the city's Donganhu Sports Center will be the venue for the event's opening and closing ceremonies. Covering 45.2 hectares, the center consists of one major field and three stadiums. A total of 51 stadiums for the competition and training will be used during the event.

The city will try hard to offer visitors first-class accommodation, food, convenient transport, medical care and other services. Construction work has also begun on the athletes' village for the 2021 Summer Universiade, located at Chengdu University. Covering 37 hectares, the village consists of eight specific buildings: apartments for athletes, a service center, a health center, an administrative affairs center, an international communication center, gymnasiums, an aquatic center and the College of Chinese& ASEAN Arts.

The village will also help athletes stay in their best physical and mental states by providing services such as physical fitness recovery, recreational facilities and cultural activities.

In April, Chengdu launched an activity for recruiting the slogan, emblem and mascot for the 2021 Summer Universiade, attracting lots of participants including professional design institutions, independent designers, workshops and teachers and students from colleges.

To date, the event has recruited more than 7,000 slogans, some 2,000 logos and 1,000 mascots. The final selection will be confirmed in August.

The city launched a program in Beijing in June to encourage global companies to join the sports event.

The event's marketing initiatives have to date concentrated in three major areas: sponsorship, franchising goods and ticketing.

Lai Xiaolei, a sport industry expert, said the 2021 Summer Universiade in Chengdu will open a door for 3.1 billion young people around the world, whom are the consumption mainstream for the future market.

The event will also present an opportunity for companies to establish brand images and explore the consumption market.

As a bridge for international exchange and cooperation, the event will stimulate the vitality of the city and expand Chengdu's world influence, according to the organizing committee.

Chengdu will host 67 international sports events from 2018 to 2020, over half of which will be intercontinental championships.

(China Daily 07/13/2019 page6)