Chinese sports brand Li Ning will sponsor the Qinghai Province team at the Chinese National Games, to be held in Shandong in October. The deal is of minimal cash value, especially when compared to the US$2 million per year endorsement deal the sportswear retailer recently signed with two-time Olympic champion and world record holding Russian pole-vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, but will see Li Ning provide more than US$50,000 worth of sporting equipment to the team.

Li Ning was founded by the 1984 Olympic gymnastics champion of the same name, who last August lit the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games and pulled off arguably the biggest sponsorship coup of the century in doing so. The company has some 10 per cent of the Chinese sportswear market.