Latest news with #MaLong
Borneo Post
6 days ago
- Health
- Borneo Post
Kids race toward healthier futures in China
Children students celebrate after participating in a tennis summer camp at a tennis club in Beijing, China, Aug. 14, 2024. – Xinhua photo BEIJING (June 5): On a warm weekend in early summer, thousands of muddy, panting and determined children sprinted, crawled and climbed their way through the obstacle-packed Spartan Kids race in Beijing. The race, held May 24-25 at Beijing's Universal CityWalk, drew children aged 4 to 14 to tackle 3-to-5-kilometer courses featuring 18 to 26 obstacles. Kids vaulted over walls, scaled nets and grappled with monkey bars, while parents cheered wildly from the sidelines. 'There are definitely moments when my children feel exhausted and want to give up, but that's how they grow,' said six-time Olympic gold medalist Ma Long, after running alongside his sons. The rising popularity of events like the Spartan Kids race reflects a growing interest in children's fitness in China, alongside a national push to get more kids moving — especially at a time when childhood obesity is becoming a serious public health concern. According to the National Health Commission (NHC), nearly 19 percent of Chinese children aged 6 to 17 are classified as overweight or obese. Research predicts that overweight and obesity rates among Chinese children could reach 31.8 percent by 2030. In response, China is stepping up efforts to alter this trend. Notably, a three-year national weight management campaign was launched in 2024, while the government is also calling for stronger weight control measures among infants, children and adolescents. In April 2025, the NHC issued a notice encouraging eligible hospitals, including children's hospitals and traditional Chinese medicine hospitals, to establish specialized weight management clinics. The country is also placing greater emphasis on physical education (PE) in schools. In Beijing, new guidelines call for more intense PE classes, designed to make students 'work up a sweat.' George Liang, aged 12 and a fifth grader in Beijing, is one of many students embracing the change. His school now has a PE class every day, along with regular long recess sessions that ensure plenty of time for outdoor activities. Liang revealed that running is his favorite way to stay active, while more recently he has also developed a love for table tennis, playing this sport daily with his younger brother and neighborhood friends. 'Sports make me feel relaxed and happy,' he said. 'I've made new friends, and I eat better after exercising.' This Children's Day, Liang is putting his passion into action by competing in an orienteering race. 'It sounds fun and creative! I hope I can do a great job!' Meanwhile, Hunan Province in central China has invited local sports clubs to co-teach school lessons, including swimming classes led by professional coaches. Shenzhen, located in south China's Guangdong Province, began requiring one PE class per day at schools in early 2024, a decision which has seen the percentage of students earning 'good' or 'excellent' marks in national fitness tests increasing by over six percent in this city. Many families have shown enthusiasm for this shift in their own ways. In the case of Keke, who traveled from nearby Tianjin Municipality in north China to compete in Beijing, the Spartan race has become more than a sporting event for her family — instead becoming a way of life. 'This is our sixth Spartan race,' said Keke's mother. 'We join whenever there's a race in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, if we are free. This time, we also visited Universal Studios in Beijing. It has become our family tradition — fitness, travel and quality time all rolled into one.' At the finish line of the Spartan Kids race in the Chinese capital, kids could be seen sharing high-fives in celebration while parents snapped muddy selfies, prompting multiple Olympic champion Ma to exclaim: 'I just hope they keep loving sports. And to all the parents out there — keep cheering and keep believing, your kids will go further than we ever did.' children China future healthy Spartan Kids
South China Morning Post
23-05-2025
- Sport
- South China Morning Post
Chinese fans fear for future of men's table tennis after historic doubles defeat
China suffered their worst men's doubles results in 50 years at the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships on Thursday, sending fans into fits of despair and questioning what the country would do if Fan Zhendong did not return to the side. Lin Shidong and Lin Gaoyuan were humbled 3-1 by Chinese Taipei's Lin Yunju and Kao Chengjui in the quarter-finals in Doha. Lin and Kao, the sixth seeds, had also dispatched Liang Jingkun and Huang Youzheng in the previous round. Defeat marked the first time since the 1975 championships in Kolkata, India, that a Chinese team had not made the semi-finals of the men's doubles. Fans took to social media to voice their criticism of the third seeds, with one saying the future was 'hard to predict', asking who the country could count on 'without Ma Long and Fan Zhendong?' One commentator joked that the men's team's setback would continue, but fans should not worry because 'it will be worse, except for the women's singles, which are slightly stable'. Lin Gaoyuan (top left) and Lin Shidong (top right) during the men's doubles quarter-final. Photo: Xinhua Another commentator summed up the general feeling among fans, writing: 'In short, the Chinese men's team is hopeless. Just wait and see. The next Olympics will be a disaster without Ma and Fan.'
The Star
06-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
China's dying EV batteries, solar cells are powering a circular economy in new-energy era
One man's waste is Ma Long's treasure. And in the new-energy era, his map leads to exhausted lithium-ion batteries – veritable troves of reusable resources that are supercharging profits at Ma's company, a maker of solid-waste-recycling equipment in central China. Pricey components such as lithium – a silvery-white alkali metal aptly nicknamed 'white gold' – along with other materials such as cobalt and nickel, hold their value beyond the life of the batteries powering China's massive electric-vehicle (EV) industry. 'There is huge potential in the business of new-energy waste, because new energy is where China and the world are going,' said the sales manager at a subsidiary of Henan Hairui Intelligent Technology in Zhengzhou, Henan province. Speaking at a recent trade fair for environmental technologies in Shanghai, Ma said 70% of his company's business is dedicated to machines for recycling batteries and solar panels. As more and more batteries and solar panels reach the end of their life cycle in China – a global leader in renewable-energy deployment – Chinese businesses like Ma's are embracing a circular economy, where materials are reused and reintroduced into new products, reducing waste and conserving resources. And with valuable metals comprising essential components in many of today's fast-growing, clean-energy technologies, the cycle is especially meaningful in terms of improving China's mineral independence as it navigates intensifying global trade tensions, according to some analysts. 'The recycling of minerals is largely for the sake of resource security,' said Du Huanzheng, a professor specialising in circular economy at Shanghai's Tongji University. 'China is also seeking new economic growth by strengthening recycling efforts, which, in the past, were more driven by the need to solve pollution issues,' he said. [China] is facing more difficulty in buying from allies of the US, such as Australia and Canada The large-scale equipment upgrades and trade-in of consumer goods, two initiatives launched a year ago to boost domestic demand in a slowing Chinese economy, have pushed up demand for recycling and represent the potential for a new round of economic growth, he said. In response to that rising demand, a new state-owned giant was created directly under the State Council last year. The China Resources Recycling Group aims to build an offline resource recycling network covering waste ranging from durable consumer goods, such as electronic products, to retired wind power and photovoltaic equipment, according to an official announcement in October. After about a decade of rapid growth in the use of EVs, whose battery life is set at an upper limit of eight years, China has already started seeing the 'large-scale retirement of car batteries', according to an official readout of a State Council meeting in February. The weight of retired car batteries in China is expected to exceed 4 million tonnes a year by 2028, and the annual output value of the waste-battery-recycling industry will be more than 280bil yuan (US$38.5bil), according to the state-run Economic Daily, citing estimates by the China Electronics Energy Saving Technology Association. Meanwhile, with their longer service life but having been deployed earlier, photovoltaic modules from China's vast solar power system are expected to begin retiring this year, and that retirement wave will intensify over the next half-decade, according to a report from the China Association of Circular Economy in 2023. Unlike fossil fuels, which are gone once burned, the metals in these new-energy products can be recycled, and this is of critical importance amid a worsening trade war between China and the United States, said a Beijing-based professor of environmental economics who declined to be named as he was not authorised to talk to the media. 'While China is intensifying efforts in looking for mines of critical minerals domestically, it is facing more difficulty in buying from allies of the US, such as Australia and Canada. 'Business with other [mineral] suppliers, such as Congo and Chile, may also be affected as the administration of Donald Trump pressures trading partners to isolate China,' he added. China relies heavily on imports for many key minerals, especially those for new-energy and high-end manufacturing, such as cobalt, nickel and lithium. On the other hand, the US and Europe are also warning against their dependence on China, as most of the intermediate links of refining and finished products are controlled by the latter. China's ongoing campaign for renewals of consumer goods and upgrades of equipment is expected to add nearly 500,000 tonnes of resources that can recover non-ferrous metals, Li Yusheng, deputy secretary general of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, said at a press conference in January. As leading battery manufacturers and carmakers, such as Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and BYD, have been perfecting their layout in battery recycling in recent years, smaller businesses are also flocking to this potential market in hopes of carving out a piece of the pie. Yu Zhongkai, a senior manager with Tianli Technology, a recycling-machine maker in Zhejiang province, said the company started developing battery-recycling equipment not long ago and now has a quarter of its business coming from this field. 'But we're still experimenting, because there are no industry-wide standards yet, and the market is still unclear,' he said. China is still in its infancy in recycling new-energy waste, but the practice is not particularly advanced anywhere in the world, noted the Beijing professor. The European Union leads in recycling standards and systems, and China enjoys the incomparable advantage of a complete industrial chain and a large-scale market, he noted. Du, the Shanghai professor, noted that it is an emerging sector that has attracted many investors but lacks regulation and technological breakthroughs. 'Businesses are showing great enthusiasm, but large-scale recycling has yet to come, and a mature recycling system has yet to be formed,' he said. China currently adopts a white-list policy to standardise the battery-recycling market and avoid safety accidents and environmental pollution. A total of 156 companies have been selected so far for the list. At February's State Council meeting, it passed an action plan aimed at improving the recycling system of car batteries, vowing to build a standardised, safe and efficient recycling system. This followed a December directive from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which said enterprises must establish a quality-assurance mechanism with product traceability and accountability, increasing mandatory standards for recycled products. One of the companies in the white list, Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology, a subsidiary of CATL, said it was capable of recovering 99.3% of the nickel, cobalt and manganese in a retired battery, and 91% of the phosphorus and lithium. This helps China form a complete closed loop in new-energy development, said its CEO, Li Changdong, during the country's annual parliamentary gathering in March. 'It ensures that the batteries go where they came from, and it improves the resilience of the new-energy industry's supply chain,' he said. Lithium-ion batteries contain heavy metals that can leach into the soil and water if not disposed of properly, and recycling them can be hazardous, as cutting in the wrong place may result in it combusting or releasing toxic fumes. However, most of the retired batteries now end up in small illegal workshops in underdeveloped regions, said Chen Liwen, an environmental activist who has more than a decade of experience in waste disposal. There is also the urgent need for regulation in the treatment of retired photovoltaics, which have spread to every corner of China after 20 years of development, she warned. 'Many rural households installed small photovoltaics two decades ago. Now, with the first batch retired, some are even being directly thrown into trash bins,' she said. Against such a backdrop, legal recyclers are struggling to receive enough waste to be processed, resulting in overcapacity, said Ma, the Zhengzhou sales manager. He expected that the issue would ease as regulation matures and a peak period for battery retirement comes in a couple of years, as many auto brands, including Chinese ones, are speeding up their shift to pure electric cars amid the EU's ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035. 'So, overall, this is a big track to follow in the next few decades,' he said. – South China Morning Post
South China Morning Post
05-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
China's dying EV batteries, solar cells are powering a circular economy in new-energy era
One man's waste is Ma Long's treasure. Advertisement And in the new-energy era, his map leads to exhausted lithium-ion batteries – veritable troves of reusable resources that are supercharging profits at Ma's company, a maker of solid-waste-recycling equipment in central China. Pricey components such as lithium – a silvery-white alkali metal aptly nicknamed 'white gold' – along with other materials such as cobalt and nickel, hold their value beyond the life of the batteries powering China's massive electric-vehicle (EV) industry. 'There is huge potential in the business of new-energy waste, because new energy is where China and the world are going,' said the sales manager at a subsidiary of Henan Hairui Intelligent Technology in Zhengzhou, Henan province. Speaking at a recent trade fair for environmental technologies in Shanghai, Ma said 70 per cent of his company's business is dedicated to machines for recycling batteries and solar panels. Advertisement As more and more batteries and solar panels reach the end of their life cycle in China – a global leader in renewable-energy deployment – Chinese businesses like Ma's are embracing a circular economy, where materials are reused and reintroduced into new products, reducing waste and conserving resources. And with valuable metals comprising essential components in many of today's fast-growing, clean-energy technologies, the cycle is especially meaningful in terms of improving China's mineral independence as it navigates intensifying global trade tensions, according to some analysts.
South China Morning Post
28-04-2025
- Sport
- South China Morning Post
Ma Long says Fan Zhendong better player than he was, always knew he would be China's leader
Chinese table tennis star Ma Long said Fan Zhendong was better a player than he had been, and he had known from early on the reigning Olympic champion would be a key figure in the country's team. Advertisement Speaking to state media, Ma, a six-time Olympic champion in his own right, said his 28-year-old successor had shown his potential as soon as he emerged onto the domestic stage. Ma, who is the only player in the history of the game to win the men's singles titles at the Olympics, the world championships and the World Cup at least twice, said Fan's future had been obvious 'right from the start'. 'We all felt that he would be the leader and key figure in the Chinese team in the future,' the 36-year-old said. 'We could see that he has such potential going forward.' Fan's four World Cup gold medals give him one more than Ma, but he still trails one of best to ever player the game in world and Olympic titles, and has achieved the grand slam just once. Ma Long has yet to officially retire and is expected to play in the National Games in November. 'I felt that it is very important that each generation is stronger than the previous one,' Ma said. 'We grew up watching Wang Liqin, Ma Lin and Wang Hao.
