Athletics at the National Games of China

Athletics is one of the sports at the quadrennial National Games of China. Athletics competitions have been at every edition of the competition since its formation in 1910 as the Chinese National Games. The Games is the highest level athletics event for Chinese athletes, ahead of the annual Chinese Athletics Championships.

The competition has had an impact beyond national level through its record-breaking history, in particular by middle- and long-distance athletes coached by Ma Junren. Known as "Ma's Army", he exercised strict control over his group of specially-selected rural peasant girls and applied tonics of turtle's blood and caterpillar fungus (ophiocordyceps sinensis). At the 1993 National Games three world records were broken by his athletes: Qu Yunxia ran 3:50.46 minutes for the 1500 metres while Wang Junxia ran 8:06.11 minutes for the 3000 metres and 29:31.78 minutes for the 10,000 metres. All three records greatly exceeded the previous marks and all stood for over twenty years. Qu's mark was finally beaten by Genzebe Dibaba in 2015 and Wang's 10,000 m time was beaten by Almaz Ayana in 2016.

The 1993 Games also brought a slew of Asian records by women runners: 49.81 seconds for the 400 metres (Ma Yuqin), 1:55.54 minutes for the 800 metres (Liu Dong), 53.96 seconds for the 400 metres hurdles (Han Qing), and 3:24.28 minutes for the 4×400 m relay.Chinese national records were also broken by Zhang Yu (12.64 seconds for the 100 metres hurdles and Ma Miaolan (6750 pts for the heptathlon).

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