Sport holds court in Guizhou as rural exercise project nears completion

GUIYANG－It came as a surprise to Luo Chuancheng, a 15-year-old middle school student, that the laying of a basketball court would be completed in his village.

Luo lives in a mountainous village called Piaozhai, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture, Southwest China's Guizhou province. He attends school in a town which is about a 20-minute drive from his village.

"I love playing basketball. Every time I went back to my village at the weekend or on holiday, I just wished there would be a basketball court," Luo says, adding that about four years ago the village's one court, which belonged to its only primary school, was closed as it had become old and unsafe for the students.