On the evening of May 8th at 7 o'clock, the 2025 Asian Weightlifting Championships opened at the Gymnasium of Hushan Sports Park in Jiangshan City. This marks the first time this top-tier continental event has been held in a county-level city in China. As the highest-level weightlifting competition in Asia, the 2025 Asian Weightlifting Championships serves as the first major continental weightlifting event in Asia after the Paris Olympics and a crucial battle for Olympic qualification points. The competition has attracted numerous top athletes from 26 countries and regions, competing for the honor of 60 gold medals across 10 weight categories for both men and women.
Why has Jiangshan, a county-level city, stood out to secure the right to host such a high-profile event?
As the 2025 Asian Weightlifting Championships approach, attention has turned to the host city—Jiangshan.
Located at the junction of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi provinces, Jiangshan is a county-level city where badminton is often the first thing that comes to mind when people think of sports and industry. Producing 180 million shuttlecocks, accounting for 65% of China's total output, Jiangshan is undoubtedly the "hometown of badminton." However, the awarding of the 2025 Asian Weightlifting Championships to Jiangshan has undoubtedly shattered this preconception.
As is well known, weightlifting is a traditional stronghold of Chinese competitive sports. Since participating in the Olympics in 1984, the Chinese weightlifting team has won 43 Olympic gold medals, earning it the reputation of a "dream team" in China's Olympic contingent. For this Asian Championships, the Chinese weightlifting team has fielded a total of 20 male and female athletes—including experienced "pillars of stability" such as Olympic champion Liu Huanhua and world champion Li Dayin, as well as rising stars like Zhao Jinhong and Li Yan, who made their mark at last year's World Championships.
Weightlifting is also a key competitive sport developed in Zhejiang Province, particularly in Quzhou, which produced two-time Olympic weightlifting champion Zhan Xugang. Zhu Qinan, Deputy Director of the Zhejiang Provincial Sports Bureau, stated that in recent years, efforts have been focused on developing combat sports, especially weightlifting.
It is not hard to see that weightlifting has become an indispensable part of fitness training and strength training for fitness enthusiasts, garnering increasing popularity.
In fact, the city of Jiangshan has an indissoluble bond with weightlifting.
"In recent years, Jiangshan has actively pursued the goal of creating a 'Sports Jiangshan, a blessed land for athletics,' having successively hosted 7 national weightlifting championships and over 10 international weightlifting training camps and conferences," introduced Zhou Xuejun, Director of the Jiangshan Municipal Sports Bureau. In 2016, Jiangshan hosted its first international weightlifting event—the China-Japan-Korea Weightlifting Invitational. During the Hangzhou Asian Games, it hosted pre-competition training camps for the Asian Games weightlifting events, forming a competition system with weightlifting as a characteristic brand, which has been highly praised by International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) President Mohamed Jaloud and others. All champions of the Chinese weightlifting team at the 2016 Rio Olympics and 2020 Tokyo Olympics were selected from Jiangshan, and nearly 20 weightlifting Olympic champions have visited Jiangshan in recent years, earning it the reputation of a "blessed land for Chinese weightlifting" by the Chinese team. Its event hosting capabilities have been widely recognized across China's weightlifting community.
In addition to rich experience in hosting events, venue availability has also been crucial in securing the hosting rights.
The Hushan Sports Park in Jiangshan, with a total investment of 1.5 billion yuan and a construction area of approximately 96,689 square meters, is a key provincial construction project and a model project of the Provincial Great Garden Initiative, built to the standards of a 4A-level scenic area. The park features a 4,000-seat gymnasium, a comprehensive weightlifting training hall with 50 weightlifting platforms, and a sports hotel with nearly 300 rooms, all tailor-made for international weightlifting training and competitions. Since its official opening in August 2023, it has hosted dozens of large-scale events, including pre-competition training camps for the Asian Games weightlifting competitions.
During the 2023 Asian Games weightlifting competitions, Al Habib, Secretary-General of the Asian Weightlifting Federation (AWF), visited Jiangshan to observe the pre-competition training camps. He was impressed by Jiangshan's picturesque scenery and world-class sports facilities, particularly the dedicated weightlifting venue. He noted that athletes who participated in the training camps at the time were deeply impressed, laying a solid foundation for the AWF Executive Board's subsequent decision to award Jiangshan the 2025 Asian Weightlifting Championships.
On April 28th last year, IWF President Mohamed Jaloud presented the plaque of "IWF Asian Weightlifting Training Center" to Hushan Sports Park in Jiangshan. At the AWF Executive Board meeting held in Uzbekistan, Jiangshan not only secured the right to host the 2025 Asian Weightlifting Championships but also had Hushan Sports Park recognized as an Asian Weightlifting Training Center.
Jaloud attaches great importance to the Asian Championships hosted by Jiangshan. "This is the first major weightlifting event in Asia after the Paris Olympics. With many veteran athletes retiring, a new generation of Asian weightlifters is rising. Countries like China, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan will all field strong teams, and this competition will also mark the 'opening battle' for many athletes in the Los Angeles Olympic cycle." In his view, Jiangshan has excellent venue conditions and a strong sports foundation. He hopes that Jiangshan can leverage this event to strengthen its ties with the IWF, AWF, and the Chinese Weightlifting Association, continue to strive in weightlifting talent development, improvement of weightlifting equipment and venues, and bidding for weightlifting events, and make further contributions to the global development of weightlifting.
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