Sports / Feature and Column
Tycoon brings polo to China's new elite
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-11-30 17:14
BEIJING, Nov 29 - Warmed by a roaring fire in a hall lined with Victorian
paintings, Xia Yang reclines in his clubhouse near Beijing and dreams of
returning polo to its glory days as a noble sport favoured by China's
privileged.
Once praised by Tang dynasty (618-907) emperors, polo is now virtually
unknown in China.
But the 40-year-old property developer is banking that China's legions of
cashed-up leisure-seekers will embrace the elitist horseback ballgame
with the same gusto that they have golf and skiing.
"The growing ranks of newly affluent, and changes in people's ideas
towards more healthy and positive lifestyles, has provided a very big
market for polo in China," Xia said.
Quick out of the blocks, horse-lover and player Xia built the Sunny Time
Polo Club two hours' drive from Beijing, complete with stables, 27 horses
and trained coaches from Inner Mongolia.
Except for the ping-pong table in the hall, the clubhouse has the feel of
an English manor house, with swords hanging over the fireplace and heavy
wooden furnishings. Red-coated men gallop around a yard outside and belt
a practice ball back and forth.
Glimpses of surrounding fields where farmers eke out a basic living are a
quick reminder the club is in China.
Xia, a bespectacled, soft-spoken former architect, has ploughed 12
million yuan ($1.53 million) into Sunny Time.
He became interested in polo after watching footage of Prince Charles
playing a match with the Sultan of Brunei in 1996.
"It struck me as really courageous and visually powerful. I thought it
would be great if I could play it myself," he said.
Xia is now such an enthusiast that he is determined to "spread polo
culture" in China in the years to come.
Consisting of two teams of four mallet-wielding players on horseback
jockeying to smack a ball through goals at either end of a 300-yard
(metre) field, polo is not for the faint-hearted.
GALLOPING WEALTH
The club, which only opened last year has around 10 regular members. But
Xia is alreading talking of upgrading its facilities to meet
international specifications, staging tournaments, and bringing in
foreign coaches to improve local players.
"China's pace of development is unimaginable, so I am standing on a
treasure trove," he said.
China now has 250,000 millionaires -- the sixth-largest population in the
world -- growing at 15 percent per year, according to a Boston Consulting
Group report.
The Forbes rich list for China released in November put the combined
wealth of China's richest 40 people at $38 billion -- up 46 percent from
the previous year.
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