Rope-jumping kids from Kunming win gold

Jumping ropes to the music and flipping up and down, four junior students from a primary school in Kunming, Yunnan province, demonstrated their skills via video.

The four, all from the Second Primary School of Xinying in Kunming’s Panlong district, won two gold medals — in the Wheel Freestyle (Female) event and the Wheel Freestyle (mixed) event — in the Junior World Championship of International Jump Rope Union Virtual World Championship Series, the world’s top event.

To stage a good performance, Qian Jinju, the primary school’s physical education teacher, coached the students in two hours every day at their spare time, and they trained eight hours of training a day during the summer vacation.

Rope jumping has been a sports program at the primary school since 1996, when the school was founded. It has been a competitive event at every sports meet held by the school during the past 25 years.

As more students start to love the sport, teachers have arranged rope jumping exercises, said Wu Jiebin, the school’s headmaster.

Each of the 1,335 students at the school has a rope, and all are able to jump ropes skillfully, Wu said.

To reduce students’ extracurricular tutoring and homework burden, the school has been offering sports courses including rope jumping, basketball, volleyball, martial arts, tennis, table tennis, ice hockey and dragon and lion dancing.