The opening ceremony featured many highlights. An Olympic-level athlete from Azerbaijan took the stage to deliver a professional performance, kicking off the event with a fluid and graceful routine. The event lineup was international, featuring domestic teams from six provinces—Hunan, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Hubei, and Jiangxi, along with representative teams from multiple countries including Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Russia, and Dubai. In the competition arena, athletes in turn showcased classic rhythmic gymnastics apparatus—rope, hoop, ball, and clubs. The routines were innovative and smoothly choreographed integrating difficult moves with artistic elegance, fully demonstrating the confidence and high spirits of the young athletes. Waves of applause echoed through the venue.

Zixing is seizing the opportunity of hosting the 2026 Chenzhou Tourism Development Conference to continuously build a model for the integrated development of "sports + cultural tourism." Centered around the Dongjiang Lake 5A-level scenic area, Zixing regularly holds lake-circuit hiking events, international dragon boat races, and various professional sports games, cultivating distinctive event IPs and forming a new consumption model of "watching sports events, touring Dongjiang, and savoring local delicacies."

Leveraging visitor flows generated by sports events, the local authority has linked several tourism routes featuring ecological sightseeing and folk culture leisure, while improving supporting facilities around the lake. These events have enhanced the city's reputation, boosting revenue in catering, accommodation, and tourism industries and achieving the goal of "hosting an event successfully to invigorate the entire city." The launch of the "Xiangyun Cup" Rhythmic Gymnastics Invitational Tournament in Zixing is a key warm-up initiative for the upcoming tourism development conference. At the same time, it helps popularize rhythmic gymnastics and contributes to the coordinated, high-quality development of mass sports, international cultural and sports exchanges, and all-for-one tourism in Hunan.

This event was guided by the Hunan Provincial Sports Bureau and the Hunan Provincial Department of Education, hosted by the Gymnastics Association of Hunan Province, and organized by the Zixing Municipal Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Radio, Television, and Sports, and No. 3 Middle School of Zixing City.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government. www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Pang Yuehui

Chinese source: hunantoday