OLYMPICS ANNIVERSARY:CHINA HAS decided to mark the anniversary of the opening ceremony of last year's Beijing Olympics by making August 8th an annual National Fitness Day, sports minister Liu Peng said yesterday.

Getting more of China’s 1.3 billion people involved in sport was one of the legacy aims of the Olympics, the first anniversary of which will also be marked by the playing of Italian soccer’s Super Cup at the Bird’s Nest national stadium today.

Liu said China’s State Council would soon promulgate the necessary regulation to establish the nationwide activity day.

“We will further promote the mass participation of sports by constructing sports facilities, supporting grassroot sports organisations and organising sports activities with localised features,” Liu told state news agency Xinhua.

Former Games official Jiang Xiaoyu said it was important to build on what had already been achieved since last year’s sporting extravaganza.

“The successful Games has greatly ignited people’s enthusiasm in sports,” Jiang, vice-president of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (Bocog), wrote in the China Daily.

“The Games helped increase the number of sport facilities and the people who exercise regularly, with the sports industries seeing a rapid growth.

“Our national sports strategy should now aim at ensuring that people are physically fit, have better health and enjoy a healthier life.

“We should include more people in the national fitness programme and provide them with more and better sport services,” he added.

In a survey by researchers Millward Brown undertaken earlier this year, 64 per cent of respondents said they ran or jogged; 48 per cent played badminton; 37 per cent basketball and 36 per cent table tennis.