BEIJING — With less than eight months to go, China has stepped up its momentum to prepare for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Delegates from all sports participated in the meeting organized by the General Administration of Sport of China (GASC) here on Dec 10 to commence their winter training.

In 2015, China has maintained its advantage in some sports, including table tennis and diving. More surprisingly, it made some breakthroughs in athletics and swimming at the world championships.

Su Bingtian, clocking 9.99 seconds, became the first Asian to have appeared on the world championships men’s 100m race final. The “fantastic 4”, Zhang Peimeng, Su Bingtian, Xie Zhenye and Mo Youxue, captured a historic men’s 4x100m relay silver medal at the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing.

In team sports, two of China’s national teams gave their fans much joy: the women’s volleyball team secured the ticket to Olympic Games with their World Cup title, so did the men’s basketball team in Asian Championships.

The glory has been the history. Liu Peng, the minister of the GASC, mentioned some new changes and challenges ahead, especially in terms of the government expenditure increase by some countries.

“It has posed severe challenges to our preparation.”

“Actually, the toughest rival in training is ourselves,” Liu said.

As usual, China will keep its zero-tolerant stance against doping, and have a close look at some food-originated problems.

The 2016 Olympic Games will be staged from Aug 5 to 21 in Rio de Janeiro.