The agency is currently led by minister Gao Zhidan.
History
In the 1950s, the State Physical Culture and Sports Commission under General He Long conducted sports exchanges with the Soviet Union and eastern Europe.[2]: 139
During the Cultural Revolution, in 1966, China's national teams stopped training and withdrew from all international events.[2]: 139
1970, China's national teams began competing again.[2]: 139 The first major international event a Chinese team participated in since 1966 was the World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan, which ultimately led to the ping-pong diplomacy with the United States.[2]: 139
In 1972, the commission was removed from PLA control.[2]: 139 The commission was tasked with facilitating sports diplomacy.[2]: 139 In 1974, it exchanged 172 groups of 3,200 athletes with eighty other countries, most of them in the Third World.[2]: 139
In June 2017, due to improper "re-accommodation" of the chief coach Guoliang Liu, 4 players and 2 coaches in Chinese National Table Tennis Team declared to leave the 2017 ITTF World Tour Chinese Open.[3][4]
^General Administration of Sport (2017-06-23). 体育总局: 男乒运动员擅自弃赛极其错误 将严肃处理 (in Chinese). QQ News. Archived from the original on 2020-11-16. Retrieved 2017-06-23.