Last weekend, China Lacrosse held its second national lacrosse tournament weekend of the year in Chengdu with over 30 teams participating in three different groups across men’s and women’s sixes competition.
With events for U15, U18 and the senior level for men and women, 36 teams participated in total from multiple cities around the country including, with the majority of teams coming from Chengdu. It was the second national championship in China after the first was in August.
The city is set to host The World Games 2025, a multi-sport international event in its 12th edition, with 35 sports in the program, including a women’s lacrosse event in sixes. Overall, lacrosse will be competed at The World Games for the third time after its first appearance in 2017 in Wroclaw, Poland, and men’s and women’s sixes competitions in Birmingham, United States in 2022.
“What’s interesting across the whole country is that we’re seeing the largest growth among all groups in participation in Chengdu,” said Brendan Mullin, a coach and administrator in China Lacrosse. “It’s important to start making noise in Chengdu with such a big event coming up and I think that’s just spurred a lot of interest for people wanting to play. Overall, it’s great to see such high turnout in terms of the number of teams.”
China’s domestic competition program has an almost exclusive focus on sixes, for the ease of tournament management and accessibility which in turn drives youth turnout.
“Everyone enjoys sixes here, and even this year between our two national events, we’re seeing improvement in a relatively new player pool,” said Mullin. “We’ve had a good year and work is always being done to get better.”
China Lacrosse was pleased with its performance at World Lacrosse championships this year, posting an impressive ninth place finish in Hong Kong at the Women’s U20 Championship, and a 15th place finish out of 28 teams in the Men’s Box Championship in Utica in the program’s first appearance.
There are more international events on deck in a busy 2025 including the Asia-Pacific Lacrosse Union qualifier for the 2026 World Lacrosse Women’s Championship in January, but a focus remains on sixes to make a splash at The World Games on home soil. China will send men’s and women’s teams to compete internationally at Hong Kong – Super Sixes in December.
“Our busy international calendar helps us lead domestic development because there are more inspirations for our players to keep training,” said Mullin.
