At 8 a.m. on October 26th, thousands of students vigorously gathered together in the First Athlete Field to attend the opening ceremony of sports meeting. With bright and warm sunshine, the sports meeting was greeted with rarely fine weather in previous sessions. As colorful flags fluttering above the auditorium and the deafening cheers and drumbeat resounding through the arena, the opening ceremony of 2017’s sports meeting went on smoothly. Vice president Hu Shiqi presided over the ceremony which school leaders, including Liu Deshun, school secretary of Party committee, leaders of all chief offices and affiliated institutions, deans of all departments, Party secretaries, deputy Party secretaries as well as teaching staff and students who took part in the competition and related workers attended.
First of all, president Li Baochao, on behalf of the university, extended his warm greetings to the athletes and referees and expressed his sincere gratitude to the teachers and students who involved themselves in the preparation of the meeting. He pointed out that the annual sport meeting was not only an important event to promote physical culture and push ahead with quality education, but also an overall inspection of physical teaching fruits and competitiveness of our school. He also stated that we should take this opportunity to continue to extensively carry out “Sunshine Sports” project and create favorable conditions for sports development so as to achieve the dynamic integration of competitive sports and nationwide fitness. He hoped that all athletes could carry forward the Olympic spirit “faster, higher, stronger”, fully display skills and ethics and make achievements in both sports scores and spiritual civilization.
With flags waving and slogans shouted loudly, square arrays marched in successively. In First Athletic Field, the imposing team of International Education School, consisting of 122 overseas students from 21 different countries, was full of vigor and vitality. And the national flags they held largely in yellow color which was the shiniest color in the field. Walking in vigorous strides, students from School of Literature, flowers in hands, showed their great love for literature by holding highly the poster with four Chinese characters on it——“shuxiangren wen” (this four-character phrase represents that the School of Literature boasts numerous books and that students of this School enjoy reading and are knowledgeable.) . The students from School of Architecture and Art Design and School of Business, in white sport suit, waved red flags and walked in steady pace, who infected all people on the scene with their enthusiasm. Students from School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in white coat caught everyone’s attention, fully displaying their specialized characteristic.
After square arrays, with the solemn national anthem, Flag Guard Team walked in the clanging pace with the National Flag carefully held in their hands, and then the solemn flag-raising ceremony began. In the backside of football court, the school Art Group and four schools made joint efforts to pose for the Olympic Rings which stood for the Olympic spirit of mutual understanding, friendship and solidarity.
With the cheers and expectations, the performances of opening ceremony finally came, exciting all the spectators. Caiqi team (the team responsible for waving flags in the beginning of opening ceremonies) was swinging flags with four colors, performing dynamically and even displaying a magnificent image of “Five Interlocked Rings”. The following was the program vividly performed by the dragon and lion team, which played red, yellow and black three dragons; while the four lions were continuously jumping, standing on two feet and rolling, which had welcomed the constant hurrah for its visual effect. The different styles of dance showed through the gorgeous students from Art School along with School of Physical Education had won warm applauses. The aerobics and LaLa danceperformed by staff and students from School of Physical Education had fully highlighted our vitality.
Finally, the representatives of referee and athlete took a solemn oath, and the president of HNUST declared that the sports meeting was opening.
It was reported that 946 athletes from different schools would compete in 14 students' competition events and 4 interesting games for the staff in the following three days.
(Translated by Chen Meijun, Dai Li)
