16th Jiangxi Games opens in Jiujiang

On Nov 8, the opening ceremony of the 16th Jiangxi Games was held in Jiujiang, a city honored as a "National Historical and Cultural City of Jiangxi province".

The quadrennial competition consists of a youth division,  social division,  school division and institutional division. Nearly 30,000 athletes from across the province will compete in 71 major events and 2,529 minor events.

This is the first time that Jiujiang has hosted the province's largest, highest-level and most influential comprehensive sports event. The local government attaches great importance to the event, and the preparatory work has set a number of "historical firsts" for the Jiangxi Provincial Games, with the torch relay being one of them.

Since it was collected at the Xiushui Memorial Hall of the Autumn Harvest Uprising on Sept 17, the torch has been relayed to the seven red sites of Tonggu, Anyuan, Yiyang, Ruijin, Yudu, Jinggangshan and Nanchang, and 12 counties in Jiujiang. Six hundred and forty representatives from various industries in the province participated in the torch relay.

At the opening ceremony, five torchbearers, including Zhao Xiaomei, Tan Yiquan, Shu Wei, Zhong Liang and Peng Bo, relayed the torch. Xu Shixiao, a gold medalist in the women's canoe double 500m at the Tokyo Olympic Games, lighted the main torch.

The Games will run until Nov 18.