Remember the young men and women from US public schools who went to China for some cultural immersion and lots of pickleball action?

Well, they just did a documentary about their China trip titled Pickleball Diplomacy: Student-Athletes to Ambassadors, and it premiered in a red-carpet event on 12 July 2025 in Washington, DC in the US. The documentary highlights the international exchange of 30 student-athletes from Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in China that saw pickleball as one of the unifying forces.

The event brought together the delegation following their April visit to Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing. The exchange, part of a broader initiative to bring 50,000 U.S. youth to China over five years, used sport, specifically pickleball, as a tool for cultural connection and diplomacy.

The same students will be honoured at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Aug. 2

You can watch the full documentary below:

A version with Chinese subtitles can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDRubHNfC-E.