‘Olympic panda’ gives birth to a male cub

Jingjing, the panda named after the Beijing Olympics mascot, gave birth to a male cub, local sources confirmed Tuesday.

The cub, weighing 189 grams, was born at 12:33 p.m. on Monday, according to Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

The cub is in a healthy condition.

This was Jingjing’s second delivery after giving birth to male twins in August, 2015.

Born in August 2005, Jingjing was named after one of the five mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, although the mascot design was based on her older sister Maomao.

Jingjing is from an “Olympic family”, her father Cobi was born on the same day as the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, and was named after the mascot, a Catalan sheepdog, by Juan Antonio Samaranch, former president of the International Olympic Committee. Her mother Yaya was born the day of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Asian Games in 1990.

Pandas are an endangered species due to extremely low reproductive rates in the wild. In captivity, they often give birth to twins and sometimes even triplets.

So far this year, five panda cubs have been born at the base, which boasts a world leading giant panda breeding community.