About Hebei Province's Sporting Background

With a population of 75 million people, you would expect to find every possible sport in Hebei Province. Yes, but some are more prominent than others – Winter Sports, Football and Table Tennis feature highly.

Winter Sports

Zhangjiakou, in the Hebei mountains NW of Beijing, hosted the skiing events for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. The vastly improved infrastructure in the area, particularly its easy access from Beijing, has resulted in a boom in Winter Sports with 30% year-on-year growth.

Football

Football ranks alongside Basketball as the most popular Chinese sport with 22% of the population identifying it as their favourite. The Chinese national team has their training base in Hebei at the National Olympic Center in Qinhuangdao. The Men’s team qualified for the FIFA World Cip for the first time in 2002, and China has a target of hosting the tournament sometime before 2050. The more successful Women’s national team qualified for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Hebei FC (based in Langfang) and Cangzhou Mighty Lions (from Cangzhou) competed in the Chinese Super League until the early 2020s when, like many other CSL teams, they were dissolved during a period of financial turmoil in the sport. At their height Hebei FC boasted Gervinho (formerly of Arsenal) and Ezequiel Lavezzi (ex-Napoli and Paris St. Germain) in their squad and were managed by Manuel Pelligrini (previously at Manchester City). At the moment Hebei’s sole representation in upper tier football is Shijiazhuang Gongfu who play in Chinese League One.

Table Tennis

Table Tennis is often regarded as China’s national sport, and in reality, China defines the sport having won 32 out of 37 available Golds since it became an Olympic event in 1988. The China National Table Tennis Training Centre is based at Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province, and this is also the hometown of Sun Yingsha, currently the world’s top ranked female player. Geng Lihuan, a legend in women’s table tennis, also hails from Hebei, this time from Baoding. Now retired she won four World Table Tennis Championships and was World No.1 for many years.