http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=282
SPORT IN CHINA
Sport arguably has not been as important in Chinese society as it has
been in the West. But that doesn't mean sports weren't played. In
ancient times Chinese nobility played
cuju, a game somewhat similar to soccer, and
chuiwan, which resembles golf. A Tang-era painting shows an emperor playing a polo-like game with ladies of his court.
For decades the People’s Liberation Army teams have been the
centerpiece of the Chinese sports system. Brook Larmer wrote in the
Washington Post, "The PLA teams — called Bayi, or 8-1, for the date of
the army’s founding — plucked the best young athletes from around the
nation. Known for their brutal training regimens, PLA teams were so
dominant in China from the 1950s through the 1980s that they were de
facto national teams, and symbols of the country’s strength."
Many Western sports first came to China via missionaries. In the 19th
and 20th century Protestant missionaries abroad emphasized the gospel
of sport nearly as much as the Gospels themselves.
The Chinese didn't even have a word for "sport" or build stadiums until
the 19th century when Europeans introduced their ideas of organized
athletic activities. The closest homegrown activities to sports are
wushu, a style of kung fu, and
tai chi,
a form of exercise which has more to do with self improvement and
spiritual discipline than competition and entertainment. A mandarin
taken to a tennis game in the 1940s told AP he couldn’t see the point:
“It is much to much for me. I would hire coolies to do that kind of
work.”
Organized, competitive sports in the Western sense began after the
1839-42 Opium Wars and was introduced mostly by missionaries and foreign
traders and were played in the early years in the treaty ports,
schools and other institutions set up by foreigners. Things like polo
grounds, race tracks, tennis courts and swimming pools were set up for
foreigners to amuse themselves not for Chinese. Some had signs that read
“Chinese keep out.” A sign in front of Huangpu Park in the British
quarter of Shanghai read "No admittance to Dogs and Chinese."
stamp from 1959
national sports event Only
a small percentage of Chinese play organized sports and engage in
Western-style sporting activities like jogging, swimming, golf and
tennis. One Time reporter said that when she went jogging in Beijing
people looked behind her to see who she was running from.
Even
so a lot of Chinese engage in sports and physical activities for fun
and exercise. People play ping pong and basketball to relax, kill time
and spend time with friends. Parks are filled with men and women doing
tai chi, line dances and other activities. A increasing number of
Chinese are swimming and playing soccer. An effort is being to get kids
involved in sport in school and athletics is becoming a bigger part of
college life.
As a rule, even today, sports aren’t played as much iin Asia as they are
outside Asia. Children are generally encouraged to spend their time
studying not playing sports, with parents especially insisting that they
study.
On of most common sports cheers in China is
jia you (pronounced jah yoh), which is used like “come on, go, go, go!” but literally means “add oil!”
A Chinese rider, Li Fuyu, rode on Lance Armstrong’s Team Radioshack
team. He was suspended from cycling in April 2010 after testing
positive for steroids.
Good Websites and Sources: Wikipedia article
Wikipedia ; China Sports Today
chinasportstoday.com ; China Daily Sports
chinadaily.com.cn ; China Sports Review
chinasportsreview.com ; China Sports Blog
chinasports.wokpopcorn.com ; South China Morning Post Sports
scmp.com ; Sports in Ancient China
Chinese Olympic Committee ; Traditional Sports
Travel China Guide ; Peasant Olympics Pictures
blogs.time.com Motorsports : Formula One in China
Formula One
Links in this Website: SPORTS, RECREATION, PETS on the Main China Page
factsanddetails.com/china (Click Sports, Recreation, Pets); SPORT IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; TABLE TENNIS IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; MARTIAL ARTS IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; CRICKET FIGHTING AND UNUSUAL SPORTS IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ;
TEAM SPORTS IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; SOCCER IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; BASKETBALL IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; NBA IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; CHINESE BASKETBALL IN PLAYERS
Factsanddetails.com/China ; YAO MING
Factsanddetails.com/China ; OLYMPICS AND CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; 2008 OLYMPICS IN BEIJING
Factsanddetails.com/China ; RECREATION IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; ENTERTAINMENT IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ; GAMES AND GAMBLING IN CHINA
Factsanddetails.com/China ;
Seriousness about Sport in China
park exercise
Brook Larmer wrote in the Washington Post: “For China, international
sporting events are rarely just games; “face” is almost always at stake,
even when the purpose is ostensibly diplomatic. The 2008 Beijing
Olympics were portrayed not just as another Games, but as
incontrovertible proof, for all to see, that China had arrived as a
world power. [Source: Brook Larmer, Washington Post, August 19, 2011]
That impulse runs deep, back to the founding of the People’s Republic.
In the 1950s, Mao created the country’s Soviet-style sports system with
one purpose: to help China shake off its reputation — gained after a
century of foreign domination — as the “weak man of Asia.”
When China earned its first world championship, in table tennis in
1959, ecstatic crowds flooded Tiananmen Square; Mao, exultant, compared
the victory to a “nuclear bomb.” Years later, when China rejoined the
Olympic movement, Deng Xiaoping’s “gold-medal strategy” — pouring
resources into medal-rich sports — turned the quadrennial medal count
into a barometer of national progress. Sure enough, China’s tally has
leaped from five medals in 1988 to 51 in 2008, when it topped the United
States for the first time.
Chinese, Westerners and Sport
Explaining why Western athletes often perform better than Chinese ones,
many Chinese say it is because Westerners are bigger and stronger than
Chinese and that Confucianism downplays the kind of individualism that
produces good athletes. Some Chinese say that when their athletes do do
better than Western athletes it is because Chinese food is more
nutritious than Western-style fast food.
Many Chinese believe that Chinese excel in sports that emphasize
coordination and flexibility, like gymnastics and diving, rather than
strength and speed. Others are believers in the "net theory"—that
Chinese do well in net sports like ping pong. volleyball and badminton
because there is no direct contact between competitors.
One Chinese sports broadcaster told Sports Illustrated, "Ancient Chinese
sports were always performances, always art. Sports were for health and
exercise, not competition, So it's been a tradition for us to be better
at performance sports, like diving and gymnastics and shooting, than
competitive sports. Or, if the sport must be competitive, let it be
table tennis or volleyball, where there's a net. Dividing the
competitors is better, so there’s no body contact."
A number of Western sports including tennis, rugby, professional
wrestling are all trying to generate interest in their sports in China.
Even NASCAR is sending out feelers to China. See Baseball, Basketball,
Team Sports
Communism and Sport in China
swimming stamp
The
Communists have viewed sports as way for China to build a national
psyche and overcome the humiliation suffered at the hands of foreigners.
In 1917, in his first published article, Mao Zedong criticized the
Chinese for not getting enough exercise and blamed their lack of
physical fitness for China’s reputation as the “the sick man of Asia.”
He wrote, “Our nation is wanting in strength. If our bodies are not
strong, how can we attain our goals and make ourselves respected.”
There is a strong element of propaganda to Chinese sport. In its website
the Beijing Olympic Committee said it was committed to “promoting mass
sporting events on an extensive scale, improving the people’s physique,
and spurring the socialist modernization of China.”
During
the Cultural Revolution, competitive sports were effectively banned and
the handful of elite athletes that existed at the time were charged
with
jinbiao zhuyi (“trophy mania”).
Sport in Communist China often has a scripted element to it. Maureen Fan
wrote in the Washington Post: “China’s political culture places a
unique emphasis on group performance. It’s an emphasis that starts as
early as kindergarten, dominates the work lives of state employees and
is used to demonstrate collective passion, where it might not otherwise
exist. To...visitors the impulse to script and stage manage everything
might seem odd. But China has long emphasized ceremony and propriety.”
David Barboza wrote in the New York Times, “Using state resources to
achieve such lofty goals is part of the game. It is known, for instance,
that in 2008 the Beijing Olympic torch relay was masterfully
stage-managed for millions of viewers of state-run television here, with
crowds bused in to line the relay route and cheer on the torch bearers.
Soon after the torch runner passed by, the cheering crowds were
ordered to get back onto their designated buses and head to the next
location along the route, where they were expected to cheer for the
cameras all over again. [Source: David Barboza, New York Times, November
2, 2010]
The state-funded, sports training programs in China are modeled after
sports programs in the Soviet Union. See Olympics, See Ping Pong team
Sports, Communism and Athletes in China
Players are encouraged to be team players and play for the glory of
China rather than themselves. If a player loses he has the burden of
letting down the entire country not such himself or herself.
Individuality is discouraged and regarded as a Western idea, expressed
in Communist party propaganda terms as "the unhealthy American
imperialist sport style of seeking headlines."
On her place on the team, one member of Chinese national women’s
basketball team told the New Yorker, “To be honest, I don’t much like
it. I wanted to be a dancer or an actress. I don’t think of it as
something I did or didn’t want to do. I thought of it as a
responsibility. It was a job.”
Star players are viewed as “intangible assets” of the state. If they
become successful and make money they are expected to share that money
with the government, coaches and their teams because they helped nurture
and develop the star players.
On
changes in attitudes among Chinese athletes one American Beijing
resident told the Washington Post, “Here in China we care about the
nation, In America you care about just the individual. This is changing,
the young people here care about the individual now. They just want to
play for themselves. For the older people they just want to play for the
nation.”
It
is common for athletes to fake their age with false identification
cards so they can play in age-group competitions. There have been
reports of players faking their ages by as much as four years. Based on
X-ray bone analysis sports officials in Guangdong found that 20 percent
of 15,000 young Chinese athletes they surveyed lied about their age.
Out of Shape China
Swimming across the Yangtze River
stamp from 1976
“When it comes down to ordinary citizens rather than Olympic athletes,
China is hardly the sports capital of the world,” Kent Ewing wrote in
the Asia Times. “Indeed, it remains a backwater. China won a stunning 51
gold medals at Beijing in 2008 and built first-rate facilities to train
athletes and paid coaches handsome salaries to manage that training,
yet sports venues for ordinary Chinese remain few and far between in a
nation that is woefully out of shape.[Source: Kent Ewing, Asia Times,
September 5, 2008]
China seems to be getting fatter in the cities while remaining
undernourished in the countryside. Most Chinese continue to live in
rural areas, where poverty and malnourishment are commonplace. At the
same time, in the burgeoning cities, American-style obesity has become a
problem. According to the most recent data from the Ministry of
Education, 8 percent of urban Chinese children between the ages of 10
and 12 are obese, while another 15 percent are overweight. Compare that
to a 2006 report by the US Department of Health and Human Services,
which did not identify a separate category for obesity but found that
18.8 percent of Americans aged 6 to 11 were overweight. [Ibid]
A national fitness program, introduced by the State Council, the
cabinet, in 1995, has largely been deemed a failure. A new national
fitness program, introduced after the 2008 Olympics which has set a goal
of motivating 40 percent of the population to take up regular exercise
by 2010, is supposed to improve matters. Part of this is requiring
children to take one period of physical education every day in school.
[Ibid]
“But the truth is that daily exercise in many schools amounts to little
more than 10 minutes of stretching, and real exercise and participation
in sports remain outside the experience of most Chinese” Ewing wrote.
“At the same time that the country has become an international sports
superpower, it has not done much to encourage a sports culture at home.”
[Ibid]
Lack of Sports Facilities in China
State media has reported that Beijing pumped 480 million yuan (US$70
million) into elite sports in 2005, while only 270 million yuan went
toward public sports venues. A General Administration of Sport survey
found there were 6.58 sports venues per 10,000 people in China, not even
close to what can be found in most developed countries. For example,
Japan has 200 sports venues per 10,000 people. Especially in rural
areas, where only 8 percent of China's total sports facilities can be
found, it's hard to find a place to play badminton, table tennis or any
other sport. [Source: Kent Ewing, Asia Times, September 5, 2008]
School exercise class
Typically, in China's many villages, the only public space for exercise
is the playground of the local school. In Beijing and other big cities
in the prosperous east, it is mostly the elderly one sees taking over
public parks and even sidewalks for their daily dose of tai chi while
the younger generation is too busy making money to take regular
exercise. And, even in these cities, sports venues can be hard to find
and expensive to use. [Ibid]
The technical operations manager of the Fengtai Olympic softball field,
Sun Bojie, recently complained that there were only six softball fields
in Beijing, a city of more than 17 million residents. No wonder, he
said, the game had failed to capture the public imagination. [Ibid]
National Peasant Games in China
The
National Peasant Games has been held in China since 1988. Events
include the 60-meter rice transplanting race, pond fishing, the
100-meter tire pushing race and the “water-carrying contest to the
seedlings amid drought” as well as conventional sports like tennis and
basketball. In the “60-meter snatch the grain and get into storage”
event contestants load a “harvest” of sandbags onto tricycles and sprint
it the finish line. In the three-man, 100-meter dash three men have
their legs tied together like contestants in a three-legged race.
The
sixth National Peasant Games was staged in October 2008. According to
Xinhua: “Unlike most sports which emphasize physical strength and
competitiveness, the games for peasants place more emphasis on
recreation and less on results.”
About
3,500 farm workers took part in the 2008 Games at the 32,000-seat
Haixia stadium in a town outside Beijing. A contestant in the 60-meter
rice-transplanting race told the Times of London, “Back home life is
pretty hard, so this is our chance to show the country and the world
what we do and our skills and abilities.” Another contestant said,
“Although we were not able to attend the Beijing Olympics, this is our
dream, our farmer’s Olympics. I do this back home. So it is closely
matched to my daily life.”
Sports Business, Nike and Adidas in China
Nike ad The
sports business in China has grown from about $1 billion a year in 1994
to $15 billion in 2008. Star athletes like basketball player Yao Ming
and gold medal hurdler Liu Xiang have multimillion dollar endorsement
deals, hawking everything from cell phones to cigarettes. Sports
websites are among the most popular in China.
The NFL sent some star players and hot, busty cheerleaders to China in
its bid to make inroads there. Even World Wrestling Entertainment is
trying to establish itself in China.
The Chinese sports market is valued at around $10 billion a year, a fraction of the American $300 billion-a-year sports market.
Nike and Adidas are competing very hard in the Chinese market. Adidas
reportedly spent $60 million for a high profile position in the Beijing
Olympics in 2008. Nike puts most of its energy into supporting athletes.
It sponsors 22 or the 28 competing Chinese sports federations and has
contacts with top Chinese athletes such as basketball player Yao Ming
and Olympic gold medal hurdler Liu Xiang. Both Nike and Adidas are
experience soaring growth in China and expect top $1 billion sales in
2008.
One university students told U.S. News and World Report he was given $62
a month for expenses school and ate nothing but instant noodles all
month and used the left money to buy Nike basketball shoes.
Both Adidas and Nike focus their marketing on brand stores rather than
with Chinese retailers. Each has about 3,000 outlets in China (2007) and
opens stores at a clip of about two a day.
Adidas's business doubled in 2004 and almost doubled again in 2005. It
planned to increase outlets in China from 4,000 to 5,000 in 2008 and
spend $200 million on marketing to take advantage if demand aroused by
the 2008 Olympics.
China
is Adidas’s second biggest market after the United States. Boosted by
sales in the run-up to the Olympics, Adidas sales increased 60 percent
in the first half of 2008. The company hopes to post $1.5 billion in
sales in China in 2010.
See Golf
Performance-Enhancing Drug Makers in China
Many of the steroids, human growth hormones and other
performance-enhancing drugs used by athletes around world are made in
China or are made with ingredients made in China. In 2007, 124 people
were arrested by U.S. officials in an investigation called “Operation
Raw Deal” that uncovered a 27-state underground network that distributed
steroids, human growth hormones and other performance-enhancing drugs.
Almost all the drugs were made with ingredients that originated from 37
chemical companies in China.
Chinese companies began dominating the performance-enhancing drugs
industry in 2005 when a U.S.-led crackdown all but shut down Mexico’s
steroid industry. Some have accused the Chinese chemical companies of
causing increased drug abuse by providing cheap ingredients and bringing
down the prices of things like EPO—a drug used by endurance athletes
that increases the oxygen levels in the blood—by making them affordable
to athletes that could not afford them in the past.
Chinese-made performance-enhancing drugs have been tied to
bodybuilders, Olympics competitors and big name professional athletes.
One investigation found that Chinese ingredients were used to make
designer steroids by BALCO, the Bay-area company accused of supplying
performance-enhancing drugs to Barry Bonds and Marion Jones.
Among the Chinese chemical makers investigated by the New York Times
that produced performance-enhancing drugs are GeneSciense
Pharmaceutical, indicted on charges of smuggling and illegally selling
human growth hormone; and Hunan Steroid, one of 37 companies named in
Operation Raw Deal. Both of these companies were present at an
exhibition for drug ingredient makers in Milan in 2007.
An investigation by the Washington Post found that four of the 37
companies were still selling steroids or ingredients to make steroid in
late 2007. One company appeared to have closed down its operation in
one province only to open up in another province. Another claimed it
didn’t sell steroids but said it did sell stanozolol and anastrozole,
both of which are kinds of steroids. Other companies claim they had no
idea they were doing anything illegal. In many cases the laws are vague
on the selling of these drugs, especially those involving steroids and
human growth hormones, which have legitimate medical uses as well as
illegal ones.
With the 2008 Olympics approaching there has been increased pressure on
China to do something about the producers of performance-enhancing drugs
as well as athletes that take them. Beijing authorities insist they are
cracking down.
Athletes and Drugs, See Olympics and China
Motorsports
China’s
top race driver Xu Lang was killed in June 2008 when a trailer tow hook
struck him in the face during a rally in Russia. The accident occurred
as Xu was helping pull another vehicle out of the mud. The towing cable
broke and struck Xu hard in the face. Xu had competed in the Paris-Dakar
race, where he drove for the Nissan Zhengzhou Corp team.
Shanghai also hosts a Moto GP motorcycle race.
Formula One in China
Lenovo Formula One car
China hosted its first Formula One race in 2004 and has a contact for
seven years until 2010. The race was held in Shanghai on a 3.24 mile
(5.4 kilometer), $244 million. track designed by renowned circuit
designer Hermann Tilke to have curves like a Chinese dragon and
accommodate 200,000 spectators, with a main grandstand for 50,000
people. Tickets for the event cost up to $500. To be able to attend is a
sign of wealth and prestige.
Including associated costs, the Formula One track cost $350 million,
making it the world’s most expensive Formula One raceway. Shanghai
Formula One was part of massive corruption scandal involving the use of
Shanghai’s multi-billion-dollar pension find. The head of Shanghai’s
Formula One, Yu Zifei, was fired in 2007 for his connection with the
misuse the pension funds. See Corruption
The China Grand Prix is held in September, late in the season when
either the driver’s title is already decided or it is a neck and neck
race. The race in 56 laps around the course. Ferrari’s Rubens
Barrichello won the inaugural race in 2004 but some of the suspense was
missing because Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher had already won the driver
title. Alonso clinched the F-1 crown in 2005 with a victory in
Shanghai.
About 40 million to 50 Chinese million watch Formula One races when they
are broadcast on television. Schumacher and Ferrari are very popular in
China. Schumacher had bad luck on the track at Shanghai. In 2004 he was
12th. In 2005 he was last when he endured a crash before the start of
the race and was out of the race after a spin in the 22nd lap.
In 2006, the Shanghai Grand Prix was the third to last race and was the
site of a pivotal showdown between Alonso with 108 points and Schumacher
with 106 points.
The
Chinese Grand Prix was moved to mid April in 2009 from October in 2008,
making it the third race of 17 race season rather than one of the last
as was the case before.
In
November 2008, it was reported that Shanghai might drop its Formula One
Grand Prix race after its 2010 contact runs out because the it loses so
much money. The event has been plagued by poor ticket sales.
Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone criticized promoters of the Chinese
Grand Prix in 2010 for a lack of local publicity and declining crowds at
the race and practice sessions leading up to it, but said the race will
continue. “It’s a shame because the whole venue is super. They’ve not
promoted it properly. It’s as simple as that. If you were in Shanghai
you wouldn’t even know there was a race here,”
Formula One Results in China
In the 2007 race 22-year-old Lewis Hamilton had a chance to be the first
rookie to clinch the driver’s championship but instead he slid into
the gravel while entering the pit stop area on slick tires and was
unable to extricate himself. The race was marred by rain. There were a
number of crashes, spin outs and close calls. Having the right tires at
the right time for the right weather conditions was the key to the race.
Ferrari and Finland’s Kimi Raikkonen won.
Hamilton was the leader most the race. He made the mistake on lap 31 of
the 56-lap race. It was the first time he was unable to finish a race
the whole year. All he needed was second to clinch the driver’ title.
Hamilton said after the race, “When I got out of the car I was just
gutted because it was my first mistake all year and that I did it on
the way to the pits was not something I usually do.”
Lewis
Hamilton won the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai in October, 2008 with
dominant pole to flag victory. Felipe Massa finished second, keeping the
Formula One season title alive, after Ferrari team made Kimi Raikkoken
let him pass.
The 2010 the Chinese Grand Prix was the forth race of the season and
was held in April. Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton placed first and
second respectively for McLaren in a race that was marred by off and one
rain and won by Button whose decision to stick with dry weather tires
was the right one. Some drivers made five ro six pit stops to change
tires to deal with the changing weather.
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton won the 2011 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai in
April, passing Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel with just a
few laps to go in the race. Hamilton almost didn’t make it to the
starting line as his car had trouble starting. Vettel finished second.
His Red Bull teammate Mark Webber finished third after starting 18th.
Indycar Racing in China
IndyCar will stage its first race in China on Aug. 19 2011 in the
coastal city of Qingdao, located between Shanghai and Beijing. Qingdao
staged the sailing portion of the 2008 Summer Olympics. This will serve
as a replacement for Japan's Twin Ring Motegi race that has an expired
contract. [Source: Lana Bandoim, Yahoo! News, November 12, 2011]
IndyCar has provided limited details for the 2012 race in China.
Drivers will not be using an oval track. Instead, officials plan on a
street course of 3.87 miles and possibly building a track in the future.
The trip to Qingdao is the fourth official location confirmed by
IndyCar for 2012. Previously, officials stated that drivers will race in
Edmonton, Toronto and Sao Paulo. It seems that the IZOD IndyCar Series
is attempting to expand to new markets and create fans overseas.
Japan's devastating earthquake in March 2011 damaged the Twin Ring
Motegi. The oval track could not be used for the race this year, so it
was moved to a street course. Although rumors circulated that the race
in Japan would be completely cancelled, IndyCar officials refused to do
this. The area suffered a 6.2 magnitude earthquake while drivers were in
Japan in Sept. 2011, but no one was hurt.
Lana Bandoim of Yahoo! News wrote, “I do not believe that concern over
future earthquakes or tsunamis is responsible for moving the race to
China and abandoning Japan. Danica Patrick was one of the only drivers
who repeatedly voiced her concerns about racing in Japan and was anxious
about the impact of radiation on food. The large number of participants
in the 2011 Twin Ring Motegi clearly indicates that there was an
interest in the race.
It seems that the actual motivation for the change is sponsors. Randy
Bernard, the CEO of IndyCar, has pointed out, "China was the No. 1 place
our sponsors wanted to go outside of the United States." I think his
statement clearly shows that the decision to move the race to China was
not motivated by concern for drivers, radiation or earthquakes. Money
was the only reason for the change.
Image Sources: 1) Nolls China website
http://www.paulnoll.com/China/index.html
; 2) Landsberger Posters
http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/; 3) Nike and UCLA Asia Institute; 4) Beijing 2008 Olympics website; Wiki Commons; Asia Obscura
http://asiaobscura.com/ ;
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times
of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters,
AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and
other publications.
