(Yicai Global) July 28 -- The world’s most elite student athletes will compete for stardom at the International University Sports Federation’s 31st World University Games Summer that gets underway in Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan today.

Athletes from around the world started to arrive in the city’s Universiade Village as early as July 22. The multi-sports competition will take place across 49 state-of-the-art venues, 13 of which are newly built and 36 of which are renovated. All venues were ready by 2021, when the games were originally meant to be held, but were then postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is the first major sporting event to be held on the mainland since the country lifted its Covid-19 restrictions earlier this year, and the third time that the World University Games are being held in China. Beijing hosted the summer games in 2001 and Shenzhen in 2021.

Hosting the World University Games will be a big boost to Chengdu’s sports industry and event economy. The city is asserting itself on the world’s sporting map and in 2022 held the World Table Tennis Championships. Chengdu will also play host to the upcoming 2024 Thomas and Uber Cup and the 2025 World Games.

Chengdu plans to expand the size of its sports industry by 50 percent over the next three years to CNY150 billion (USD21 billion) and its added value should account for more than 2 percent of the city’s gross domestic product by then, according to a plan released by the municipal government in 2021.

Chengdu's sports sector was worth CNY100.5 billion (USD14 billion) last year, a jump of 59 percent from 2018, and its added value came to CNY38.5 billion, a surge of 79 percent over the period.

Editor: Kim Taylor