BEIJING -- Chen Chen, a 22-year-old girl in a pair of Nike sneakers and a baseball cap of the same brand, walked out of the Xuanwumen Subway Station in Beijing on August 2, the last Saturday before the 2008 Olympics.
     Many young people on the city's street are dressed in casual sports wear this summer ahead of the Olympics.
     China produces 65 percent of the world's sports supplies. But many brand names began to pay more attention to China not only because it is a manufacturing center of sports supplies, but also because it has become one of the major consumers.
     "Chinese people have more money to spend than before and more people developed habits of doing sports. So many of them became consumers of sports supplies, " said Xu Yang, Director of the brand management center of Anta Company, a domestic brand name of sports wear.
     The China Education and Sports Supplies Association (CESSA) predicted that the Beijing Olympics will further promote Chinese people's consumption of sports supplies. It estimated that the sales volume of sports supplies in China will reach 80 billion yuan ($11.4 billion dollars) in 2008. China will become the second largest market for sports supplies only next to the United States.