Six Chinese archers set a new page in the country's sports history when they compete in the World Championships begins Tuesday in Florence of Italy: being different from those state-support athletes, these young Chinese marksmen are amateurs and taking the sport purely for personal fun and absolutely on their own spending.

Ren Jingquan and his five teammates of Jing Cheng Archery Club in Beijing will represent China at the Sixth International Archery Federation (FITA) Indoor World Championships slated form March 19th to 24th.

For the past 18 months, Ren took archery training courses in Jing Cheng almost everyday after work in a foreign embassy to Beijing. His teammates are all amateurs, too, who hold jobs in all fields in the country's capital.

"This is the first time that market-oriented archery club members in China take a chance to replace state-trained archers to compete in major world event." said Zhang Ying, a spokeswoman for the Jiang Cheng Club.

"Apart from taking archery in their spare time, our members have their regular jobs. Most of them are white-collars," Zhang added.

Chinese sports officials welcome the change and hope that someday later market-oriented clubs will eventually play the ace roles in China sports.

China grabbed 28 gold medals to finish third on medal tally at the Sydney Olympic Games, but for the last five decades the country have not been quite familiar with sports marketing and amateurs clubs. Most of China's top athletes have been picked up and trained in their early ages and later considered their exercises and competitions as their "jobs" rather than personal interests and fun.

Clubs sports have been rooted in developed countries for hundreds of years. But in China there had been no sports clubs until the late 1970s when China adopted a policy of reform and opening up to the outside world.

"It is assumed that there are about 100 sports clubs of different kinds in Beijing right now," said Min Ton, General Manager of Mana, a company promoting exchanges between cultures.

Those sports clubs have boomed in Beijing and other big cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou as a new business as China has geared up its steps to join the WTO in the last two years.

"It is very difficult to piece together a whole picture of the none government support sports clubs in Beijing due to the neglect by the authorities. We have tried many governmental sections including the National Statistic Bureau, but failed in detecting any trial of sports clubs." Min added.

"We have to turn to yellow pages and other methods. The turnout is very encouraging. We found over 100 sports clubs in Beijing. Their business range from scuba diving, shaping, surfing, fishing, archering, cliff climbing, parachute diving, fencing, bowling, cross country driving, roller-skating, camping, golfing, taekwondo, equestrianism, fire balloon fling, para-gliding and many others," said Min.

Yin Ying joined a para-gliding club five years ago. She takes the sport as a hobby, while her profession is a public relations manager for Mana.

"I enjoin para-gliding. It costs me about 10,000 yuans (about 1, 200 US dollars) every year," said Yin.

Jing Chen claimed that it has more than 4,000 current members in Beijing, a city with a population over 13 millions. To be registered in Jing Chen will cost a person 7,500 yuans (about 900 US dollars) for annual membership fee.

"Taking sports as a personal fun is a new trend in China. In the past, sports could means every thing rather than personal fun, " Said Min Ton, who returned after living several years abroad in Europe and the American.

(People's Daily 03/20/01)