From 80 percent of the Olympic mascot "Phryges" to 1 million official Olympic silicone wristbands; from judo mats embedded with "smart chips" to table tennis tables equipped with colored lighting systems... With the Paris Olympics in full swing, "Made in China" products are too numerous to count both inside and outside the venues, and many of them come from the small Shandong city of Leling.

Leling is located at the border of Shandong and Hebei provinces. It is a county-level city under Shandong Province, administered by Dezhou City. Mention it, and many people think of the "home of golden-thread jujubes," as well as Yang'an Town, a condiment town that occupies "half of the Chinese condiment market." Few realize that in the fiercely competitive race for official Olympic supplies, Leling has also managed to secure a place.

　　"Made in Leling" active at the Olympics

In the early hours of August 10 Beijing time, the Chinese women's field hockey team won silver in the women's hockey final at the Paris Olympics, matching its best-ever result. The distinctive Chinese-style "dragon and phoenix battle uniforms" worn by the players came from the Leling production base of Aitu'ai.

Photo shows Chinese players hugging in celebration of a goal during the women's hockey final at the Paris Olympics on August 10.

"When designing this 'battle uniform,' we incorporated dragon and phoenix elements that symbolize the Chinese national spirit, conveying auspicious meanings such as strength, good fortune and wishes come true, and showcasing Chinese aesthetics on the field," said You Jintao, chairman of Aitu'ai (Beijing) Sports Goods Co., Ltd., in an interview. He said the company has been the designated clothing supplier for the national field hockey team since 2016, tailoring uniforms for the players in terms of cut, function and style based on the characteristics of the sport.

"This year, we used a four-way stretch quick-dry fabric that resists pulling and tearing and offers good breathability to make the field hockey team uniforms. When the players sweat while battling on the field, the clothing quickly wicks moisture away, keeping their bodies dry," You Jintao said.

The Chinese women's field hockey team wearing uniforms designed by Aitu'ai. Photo courtesy of the Publicity Department of the Leling Municipal Party Committee.

As a native of Leling, You Jintao has deep feelings for his hometown. Although he has been an entrepreneur in Beijing for many years, he has always kept the production base in his hometown, both because Leling offers considerable support to sports enterprises and because the local sports industry has strong momentum and a complete supply chain.

In the Taishan Sports (International) Industrial Park in Leling, "breathing" artificial turf, ultralight smart carbon fiber bicycles and smart home fitness kits roll off the lines continuously for domestic and overseas markets. Numerous pieces of sports equipment and gear are shipped from here and feature at international sporting events such as the Olympics, Asian Games and Youth Olympic Games.

"This Paris Olympics is the seventh time Taishan Sports has served the Olympics since 2004. We provided more than 10 types and over 10,000 pieces of sports equipment for the main competitions and qualifiers in events including wrestling, judo, cycling, boxing and taekwondo," said Bian Qingfeng, chairman of Taishan Sports Group Co., Ltd. He said the equipment is highly technological; for example, the judo mats with "smart chips" can collect real-time data on athletes' movement trajectories, force and frequency.

Judo mats developed by Taishan Sports appear at the Paris Olympics. Photo courtesy of Taishan Sports.

The "Pardus" sports bicycles produced by a Taishan Sports subsidiary also followed the national cycling team to the Paris Olympics. "The biggest enemy in cycling is wind. Our Olympic competition-edition bicycle features an aerodynamic tube design and, after nearly a hundred revisions and tests, can minimize wind resistance to the greatest extent," Bian Qingfeng said. He noted that this year is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese lunar calendar, so they specially incorporated mysterious and majestic dragon-scale patterns into the frame.

During the Paris Olympics, Taishan Sports also provided boxing training products, strength fitness equipment and more to the French Deauville training center camp where the national team was based, and arranged a dedicated team to handle transport, installation and maintenance services.

Looking back on more than 40 years of development, Taishan Sports has served nearly 2,000 domestic and international competitions, with sales accounting for more than 90 percent of the market share for *** events; its commercial fitness equipment accounts for more than 70 percent of the national market and is exported to more than 170 countries and regions.

Olympic competition-edition bicycles produced by Taishan Sports. (File photo) Photo by Jia Peng.

Industry insiders have said that international sporting events are not only a stage for athletes from around the world to show their skills, but also a arena where brands from various countries compete. The competition for official Olympic supplies is no less intense than the contest for medals.

Why can enterprises in Leling, a small city in northwestern Shandong, keep winning "Olympic tickets"?

Technological innovation is the core "password"

As a national sports industry base, Leling has 18 sports manufacturing enterprises and 16 enterprises in sports fitness, culture and engineering, with competitive sports equipment accounting for more than 90 percent of the national market share. It is home to the country's ** National Sports Goods Engineering Technology Research Center and a nationally recognized enterprise technology center.

Enterprises rooted and growing here strictly control product quality, take technological innovation as their core, actively expand the domestic market and strive to develop overseas markets.

Take Taishan Sports as an example. It has more than 1,000 full-time and part-time R&D personnel at home and abroad, has participated in formulating more than 200 domestic and international industry standards, and ranks ** in the country and the global industry in terms of the number of patents and international certifications, respectively.

Taishan Sports bicycle production workshop. (File photo) Photo by Jia Peng.

Leling Friendship Sports Equipment Co., Ltd., less than two kilometers from Taishan Sports Industry Group, was founded in 1988 and, with outstanding innovation capability, stands out in competition in China's archery industry.

"We have independently developed more than 200 kinds of high-tech archery equipment and accessories, and have participated in supplying equipment for domestic and international events such as the Hangzhou Asian Games, Chengdu Universiade and Beijing Olympics," Liu Shisheng, chairman of Friendship Sports Equipment, told reporters. The company produces about 200,000 sets of archery equipment a year, with sales of about 150 million yuan (RMB, same below). The team's independently developed ceramic-carbon bow limbs, graphene bow limbs and a new smart archery target-reporting system are all at the international leading level.

During the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023, Friendship Sports Equipment supplied more than 80 types and over 20,000 pieces of products. Liu Shisheng gave an example: compared with traditional timers, the archery electronic timers they supplied to the Asian Games added a mode that displays the current competition status on a full screen, and can also adjust volume, brightness and tone, offering a strong sense of technology.　　

Archery electronic timers supplied by Friendship Sports to the Hangzhou Asian Games. (File photo, courtesy of Friendship Sports)

At present, Leling is building a national high-end sports equipment technology innovation center. More and more local enterprises realize that technological innovation is the "killer weapon" for sports products to break into top domestic and international events, and that core technologies must rely on independent research and development. Their transformation is a microcosm of China's innovative economic development.

A "famous sports city" is emerging

Riding the "Olympic fever," "Made in Leling" is accelerating its "going global." In the first half of this year, the operating revenue of local sports enterprises above designated size reached 5.463 billion yuan, up 6.24 percent year on year; operating profit was 746 million yuan, up 12.85 percent year on year.

Aiming at building a "famous sports city," Leling is continuously guiding key enterprises such as Taishan Sports, Friendship Archery and Luchen Garments to unleash their brand value and transform from equipment manufacturers into full-chain service providers, while stepping up efforts to cultivate emerging enterprises such as Aofan, Youheng and Fusi, striving to create another batch of key enterprises that "rise from small to above designated size."

"Leling will rely on leading enterprises and chain-head enterprises in the industrial chain to attract and undertake core projects and supporting projects, attract scientific research projects to be industrialized locally, and build an industrial cluster with a complete chain, close supporting collaboration, precise factor allocation and significant scale effects," said Wen Haidong, Party secretary and director of the Leling Municipal Education and Sports Bureau. He revealed that beyond expanding the industrial cluster, Leling is also shaping new consumption growth poles.

Wen Haidong said the city plans to establish a municipal bicycle association to promote and popularize cycling, drive industrial development with branded cycling events, polish the city's image as a "bicycle-friendly city," and empower the building of a distinctive famous sports city.

File photo: Workers debugging sports bicycles in a production workshop. Photo courtesy of the Publicity Department of the Leling Municipal Party Committee.

Looking back at the Paris Olympics, "made in a small city" products can also shine, demonstrating the vitality and creativity of China's county-level economy. Under the continued influence of the "Olympic effect," it is believed that more "Made in China" products will shine brightly on the international stage!