The ceremony to mark the start of the China Weightlifting Museum's construction work is held in Shilong Town, Dongguan City,March 1, 2021.
As the famous "Town of Weightlifting", Shilong Town has seen weightlifters trained here to break the world record 19 times and win 29 world championships in history. On March 1, the ceremony to mark the start of the China Weightlifting Museum's construction work was held in Shilong Town, Dongguan City. The museum, which is expected to open at the end of this year officially, will be committed to building a national and world-class display that shows the achievements and spirit of weightlifting.
Representatives from various walks of life, including leaders and experts of the General Administration of Sports of China, Sports Bureau of Guangdong Province, the national, provincial and municipal weightlifting associations, the Publicity Department of Dongguan, as well as weightlifting Olympic champions attended the ceremony.
Yang Xiaotang, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Dongguan Municipal Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Dongguan Committee, said that Shilong has nurtured several weightlifting athletes represented by Chen Jingkai, who wrote a glorious chapter in the history of weightlifting development in China and the world, and forged the weightlifting spirit that has inspired generations of Dongguan people to move forward. "To build the China Weightlifting Museum is to tell the story about weightlifting in Shilong, Dongguan, and China so that this cultural gem will shine in a new era." He said the construction of the museum project should be progressed at a high level and quality to further demonstrate the soft strength of Dongguan's culture and to present a gift for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
The China Weightlifting Museum will be located at the former Shilong Amateur Sports School and the cultural building's auxiliary building. It will cover 1,000 square meters, with a construction area of more than 5,000 square meters. The investment for this project is about 60 million yuan. All walks of life have actively donated weightlifting historical objects to the museum. So far, 2,875 exhibits have been collected. The museum was designed by Guo Qian, director of the Institute of Historical Environmental Protection and Renewal of South China University of Technology. Well-known companies will be selected to arrange exhibitions, and logo design proposals will be solicited nationwide.
The China Weightlifting Museum will be the only national museum with a weightlifting theme in China. It will also be the first national sports theme museum in Dongguan, a landmark project in the city's construction of the "museum city".
In recent years, Dongguan has been committed to building a "city of quality culture". In 2004, Dongguan took the lead in the country by proposing a "museum city" via building thematic museums featuring historical resources, industrial facilities, folk collections, and leisure consumption. There are 54 museums in Dongguan, ranking third in Guangdong Province in terms of scale and number.