Beijing, November 17 (EFE) .- The Chinese star of cinema and martial arts Jet Li and businessman Jack Ma, owner of the e-commerce giant Alibaba, have jointly created a new martial art based on the taichi with which they hope to take this ancient tradition to the Olympic Games, informs the official Xinhua news agency.

Ma - taichi practitioner from 20 years ago- and Li have baptized this new form of struggle as Gong Shu Dao (or GSD) and its main objective is to standardize and professionalize the martial arts of Chinese origin to get them to arrive to the Olympic program, how the Koreans achieved with taekwondo and the Japanese with judo.

"Since 1990 all martial arts practitioners in China have been thinking how take them to the Olympics, and we have worked on it for decades but we still have not achieved it, "Li said at the presentation of the new Gong Shu Dao, during a ceremony held on Thursday in Beijing.

Li, a fighter since he was eight years old and already a Chinese national champion at 12, said in the presentation that he treated this problem with his friend Ma at length. and finally they decided to imitate the experiences of Japan and South Korea.

In that sense, they chose to take only one of the many Chinese martial arts -using for example another very popular, kung fu- and then modify it according to the standards of the Olympic program.

The next step will be to promote it worldwide, something that seems simple taking into There are already 150 million Tai Chi practitioners on the planet, although there is a handicap that most of them are people over 40 who use the "slow" modality. of the martial art with more gymnastic than sporting purposes.

Jack Ma, one of the richest men in his country, collaborates in the promotion not only economically but also as an actor: the week A short film was presented by the magnate and experts in martial arts to promote the Gong Shu Dao, which will be shown in movie theaters and televisions.