Young guns and Olympic champs ensure most competitive ever Games

With a total of 50 Tokyo 2020 champions and a host of fast-rising young talents all raising the bar, China's 14th National Games proved to be the most competitive ever edition of the showpiece.

Sprinter Su Bingtian, who won two golds and one silver at this year's Games, hailed the emergence of the next generation of Chinese athletes at the Games, which were hosted by Shaanxi province from Sept 15-27.

"Everyone knows this is the most competitive edition of the National Games in the event's history. So I dared not to take the races here lightly," said Su, who won the men's 100 meters in 9.95 seconds in Xi'an.

Su became the first Chinese to reach an Olympic 100m final in Tokyo, refreshing the Asian record to 9.83 in the process. The veteran, though, faced stiff competition in Xi'an, including one of his students at Guangzhou's Jinan University, where the 32-year-old works as an associate professor.

"I came here to compete as a teacher. Yan Haibin, who raced against me today, is a student of my university. This was a race between a teacher and his student, which is a memory I will treasure," said Su on the day of the 100m final.

According to the General Administration of Sport of China (GASC), the winning times or scores of 56 disciplines at this year's National Games were improvements on the corresponding results at the previous edition of the Games, in 2017. In addition, the results in 17 disciplines at the nationals were better than Chinese athletes' corresponding results at the Tokyo Olympics.

"Athletes have produced great results, with many new records set at the National Games. By Saturday, nine athletes, as well as shooting and weightlifting teams, surpassed 12 world records," said Gao Zhidan, a deputy director of the GASC.

"One athletics team surpassed an Asian record. Thirteen athletes and seven teams in cycling, weightlifting, athletics, sports climbing and swimming set a total of 22 national records. In weightlifting, seven athletes set 10 national youth records."

The elite standard of competition at the Games was perhaps best illustrated in the women's 10-meter platform diving event, where three Olympic gold medalists－Quan Hongchan, Zhang Jiaqi and Chen Yuxi－battled it out.

In table tennis, Tokyo 2020 women's single champion Chen Meng even failed to reach the final in Xi'an, with national squad teammate Wang Manyu instead striking gold.

The shooting competition also witnessed an upset when Olympic champion Yang Qian was beaten to 10-meter air rifle gold by 17-year-old Wang Zhilin, who recorded a national record score of 634.4 points en route to glory.

Among the 24 shooting champions at the National Games, 11 were born after 2000.

"The level of many events at the National Games was extremely competitive, even matching the standard of the Olympics," Liu Guoyong, director of competitive sports at the GASC, told China Daily on Sunday.

"Also we are pleased to see the emergence of the new generation of athletes who have showed potential to challenge the Olympic champions and refresh world records."