Interviewing people from local communities and researching their sporting interests, finding venues for their activities and co-ordinating the building of new ones it would be reasonable to consider this the work of a whole team.
However just one man took on the job Zhao Xiaokong, who was appointed to oversee the development of local sport in Shanxi Province of North China.
Zhao is a mid-level official, the head of the "Sports-for-All" division of the provincial sports bureau. From 2003 to 2005, he took on a rural sports development project of immense scale: the Shanxi Da-Yun Sports Corridor.
The project is so named because the facilities are all built along the Datong-Yuncheng Road, a provincial expressway cutting through the heartland of Shanxi.
Zhao was responsible for developing 650 basketball courts, 25 gymnasiums, six sports clubs and installing 1,980 pieces of sporting equipment in a province known mainly for the coal and vinegar it produces.
The project was financed by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the State General Administration of
Sport (SGAS), the national sports authority, which contributed 8 million yuan (US$980,000), along with Shanxi's local government who contributed supplementary funding.
Zhao's project serves around 2 million farmers from some 600 villages along the expressway, and has earned commendation from the central government
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