Volvo race takes in Chinese resort

The Chinese resort city of Sanya has won the right to host the only Asian stopover in the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12, organisers said on Thursday.

Sanya, on the southern island of Hainan, will stage the finish of leg three, which starts in Abu Dhabi and finishes in Galway.

The Volvo Ocean Race stopped over in Qingdao, China, during the 2008-09 event.

‘The race was held very successfully in Qingdao and has inspired a passion among many Chinese people,’ said Volvo Ocean Race CEO Knut Frostad.

The race, the world's most gruelling offshore yachting event, starts in Alicante, in Spain, in autumn 2011 and includes stopovers in Cape Town, Lisbon and Lorient in northwestern France.

There will be seven or eight stops in total, the precise details are yet to be announced, and the race will finish in Galway in the summer of 2012