One year after the hosting of the Beijing Olympic Games, the 11th National Games, with the theme of "Harmonious China and People's Games", were held in Jinan of east China's Shandong Province on October 16-28, 2009. As a result, host Shandong topped the medals table with 63 golds, followed by the People's Liberation Army with 49 and Jiangsu 48.5.

The Games, billed as China's mini-Olympics, featured 33 sports consisting of all 28 sports in summer Olympics, four winter sports and wushu as well and were a true sports extravaganza as 5 world records, 16 Asian records and 39 national records were broken.

The weightlifters stole the limelight at the prestigious competition with seven strongwomen bettering ten world records in four categories and two strongmen breaking two world records in two categories.

The swimmers also made splashes in the pool as one world record and 11 Asian records had been rewritten by them. China's Olympic champion Liu Zige once again made the headline, setting a new world record in the women's 200m butterfly final in 2:01.81, and knocking over two seconds off the previous world best set by Australian Jessica Schipper at the Rome World Championships in July 2009.

In the less competitive track and field, pin-up hurdler Liu Xiang made an impressive comeback to win a third straight title at the Games. Though Liu's winning result of 13.34 seconds was far off his former world record and personal best of 12.88, his second race after his shock withdrawal from the Beijing Olympics pushed the National Games to its climax. Li Yanxi of Hebei jumped a distance of 17.59 meters, breaking the triple jump Asian record of 17.35 and also refreshing the oldest Chinese track and field national record of 17.34 set by Zou Zhenxian on September 5, 1981.

However, the biggest-ever National Games in history, with the participation of 10,991 athletes from 46 delegations, were marred by three doping scandals although the Chinese sports governing body has vowed a serious clampdown on doping cheats.

Xiao Tian, vice minister in charge of the General Administration of Sport of China, called for better sportsmanship and fairer competition, yet acknowledged that to improve the sportsmanship and fight against doping in sport were an "arduous" task.

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