15-min fitness circle emerges in Guizhou

As the night descends, it's easy to find people engaging in various exercises such as jogging, playing balls and dancing at the Qianling Mountain Sports Park in Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou province.

The park is successful in the province for carrying out the "15-minute fitness circle" activity, which is meant to build site facilities for citizens to take exercises within fifteen minutes on foot or by bike from people's residential places. The activity was set up by the state in 2014 and expected to be implemented in all the cities, towns and villages by 2025.

The park occupies 250,000 square meters and was located under the city's biggest overpass Qianchun Overpass, which is comprised of five layers with a highest vertical drop of 55 meters. The overpass had significantly improved the city's transportation and many drivers said it was like taking roller coaster to drive on it. 

To make a better use of the flat vacant land with good light than under the overpass, the government decided to build the sports park and put it into use in 2018. In addition to outdoor exercise places, such as football fields and basketball courts, the park also had an indoor stadium for table tennis and badminton. There were also abundant parking lots.

To speed up the implementation of the "15-minute fitness circle" activity, the State Council office released guidelines last October to encourage cities to make better use of land.

In line with the guidelines, Guizhou has planned to invest 27 million yuan ($4.16 million) this year to construct 450 fitness paths or basketball fields.

Just last month, Jinhua Park residential community, which was 15 kilometers away from the park, transformed its original idle spray fountain into a smart sports exercise station that has a badminton court, entertainment area for children, fitness trail and was equipped with smart fitness devices and interactive screens.

A residential community in Guiyang's Yunyan district also put a 24-hour smart gym into operation. The gym was built by enterprises on idle land for community residents.

Wu Kunling, deputy head of Guiyang's Guanshanhu district, explained that since epidemic prevention and control measures are enforced, the local government opened pilot sports sites in 13 schools to the public for free. The government also bought public facility accident insurance, installed an access control system and paid for maintenance.