Qingdao
Overview
Qingdao, this coastal city with a century-old history, besides beautiful scenery of red roofs and green trees and Tsingtao beer, but what's more charming about the city is the white sails dotted on the shinning sea. The Olympic Sailing Regatta gives Qingdao the title of Sailing City of Chinas but behind the title is the hundred-year history connections between Qindao and sailing.
From 1904
In 1910, a British man called Palmer wrote in his book Qingdao. There are all kinds of social and entertainment activities, also sports like tennis, sailing and horse-riding. At that moment, sailing was one of the basic social and entertainment activities for westerners in Qingdao. It's very common then. In fact, early in 1904, Qingdao Royal Sailing Club held sailing competition in Qingdao once. However, the attendants for the competition confined to westerners and the upper-class Chinese, excluding the common citizen of Qingdao.
Sailing in China can be dated back to the 50th of last century. As the birthplace of sailing, Qingdao launched a number of water sports such as sailing, windsurfing, motor boats, water skiing, sailing model, and naval 5.The State Sports General Administration of Qingdao Sailing Sport School was known as the cradle of sports talents in China and 'Huangpu Military Academy'. In the past 50 year, Qingdao Sailing Sport School trained a large number of excellent sailors for navigational development in China.
Qingdao and Olympics
The 29th Olympic Sailing Regatta and the 13th Paralympics Sailing Regatta has been held in Qingdao. Today, Qingdao International Regatta Centre covering an area of about 45 hectares has been completed, which embodies the concept of 'Green Olympics, Hi-tech Olympic and People's Olympics'. Five buildings of the administration center, athletes apartments, athletes center, media center, logistical support and function center, and environmental construction projects, the main breakwater, the sub-breakwater, the Olympic Memorial Wall, all of this construction work, has reached world-class level in terms of planning and designing.
With the efforts of the Qingdao municipal government, since the Qingdao station World Yacht Race 2005-2006 was held in Qingdao in February 2006, a number of sailing event has been undertaken in Qingdao such as 2006 the National Yachting Championships, 2007 Qingdao International Regatta and 2006 Qingdao International Regatta. All these events attracted international athletes to compete in Qingdao, making Qingdao become the 'the sailing capital home and abroad'.
