INCREASINGLY,
Chinese athletes are making outstanding performances in international
sports competitions, attracting much attention to China’s “nationwide
sports training system.” Media put much of China’s success at the
Beijing Olympics down to this “nationwide sport system,” while an
article by Reuters went so far as to declare that “each of China’s gold
medals at the Beijing Olympics is the result of this system.”
In
China opinions on this system are divided into two opposing camps. Some
claim that it is perfect and should remain untouched, but many scholars
of sports and social sciences insist that the system must be reformed,
or even abolished.
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The Chinese Sports Delegation to the 2012 London Olympics was finalized in Beijing on July 10.
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Olympics Obsessed
China’s
“nationwide sport system” refers to a centrally managed program that
strives for excellence in competitive sports, with Olympic medals seen
as the most important awards and a measure of success. The system works
on four levels – county amateur teams, prefectural teams, provincial
teams and national teams – to ensure the training of top quality
athletes. Huge financial outlays are needed to keep this closed training
system, with its centralized residences, integrated regional games, and
national games, running smoothly.
Over
the years this system has provided China with excellent results. Since
the ninth Asian Games in 1982, when China won more gold medals than any
other participating country, the country has outperformed its neighbors
by increasing distances. One only has to look at China’s performances at
the past five Olympic Games to see the steady rise of the nation’s
sporting prowess, where the country won successively 16, 16, 28, 32 and
51 gold medals, bringing its world ranking from fourth in 1992 to first
at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. At London 2012, China finished second,
with 38 gold medals and 87 medals in total.
The
effectiveness of the “nationwide sport system” is obvious if looked at
from this perspective, but the Olympics are only one event among many,
and these achievements do not imply that China actually dominates
international competitive sports.
At
present, there are only 28 Olympic sports, 26 of which featured at the
London Olympics, which represent only a tiny fraction of all sports.
Achievements at the Olympics do not reflect an advance in other events,
and do not reflect the general level of sports in China. Many countries
do not regard Olympic gold as the ultimate goal of their sports
strategies. For example, India, whose economy is growing fast and whose
population is second only to China’s, pays little attention to its
performance at the Summer or Winter Games. By Olympic standards, India’s
athletic prowess is weak, but in reality the nation has produced world
class teams and players in sports that China is relatively poor at, such
as cricket and golf.
Even
within the world of the Olympic games, judging China’s sporting prowess
simply by its aggregated number of gold medals is misleading, masking
the nation’s weaknesses in several major events. Though it might have
the overall lead, China does not perform well in every single discipline
against the United States or Russia, or even against Britain, Australia
or Italy. China can count itself only as average in basic Olympic
events such as ball games, the athletics or swimming. In sum, the
Olympic Games cannot be used as the only yardstick to measure success in
competitive sports, and its importance should not be overstated.
Breaking the Closed System
In
reality, China’s sport system has many drawbacks. It attracts massive
funds to support competitive sports, meaning reduced funding to sports
for the general public. The intensive and closed training athletes go
through means that they have few chances to learn other things, and once
their athletic careers are over they have little of the experience
needed to enter new professions. Such problems draw criticism from not
just sports specialists who are calling for the abolition of the
“nationwide sport system,” but also from the public.
Other
institutions have attempted to provide environments for producing top
athletes. Tsinghua University set up a system for training athletes from
a young age until candidacy for the Olympics, but it has been strangled
by the so-called “nationwide sport system.” Under the justification
that they are making contribution to “honoring the motherland,” the
sport departments hoard sporting resources and operate in a closed
manner that excludes the outside world. A result of this is that, though
the Ministry of Education has made efforts to organize school sports
teams since 1986, no Olympic champion has come from China’s non-sport
specialized colleges. The situation is very different in the U.S., where
over 60 percent of Olympic champions are recipients of sports
scholarships in regular universities.
Since
the Beijing Olympics, certain developed countries have reviewed their
sports management systems and strengthened competitive sports, but this
has not meant they have chosen China’s “nationwide sport system” as a
model. For example, although they propose to increase the time dedicated
to training, the basic system for U.S. college athletics has not been
changed and athletes who do not meet the academic demands are not
allowed to participate in sports training. As for Japan, it was
determined to become one of the top five gold medal winning nations at
the London Olympic Games and increased funding for sports, albeit to a
limited extent. The country ended up 11th, with seven gold medals. It
did not change its traditional system, which aims primarily to improve
public health.
I
have visited six European countries over the past two years. What
impressed me most were their community based sports activities, which
they often use as a means to achieve almost every social objective. In
Germany, sports clubs can be found everywhere, and they are constantly
refined to improve the lives of the disabled, the elderly, youth and
immigrants; to prevent crimes, increase labor productivity, enhance
community solidarity and help the fight against drugs, all undeniably
worthwhile reasons to develop sports clubs. The result is that the link
between sports and society can be felt everywhere. And isn’t this the
real motive for encouraging sports?
Currently,
about two thirds of countries around the world have no specialist
sports ministries in their cabinets, but integrate sports management
with culture, education, tourism, art, youth, and even religion. After
China’s government restructuring in 1998, many county-level governments
have established institutions whose responsibilities combine culture,
radio, television, film and sports with the idea of integrating sports
with other areas. However, this objective has not been fully realized
due to operational deviations. In my opinion, reforming the “nationwide
sport system” should be made part of the restructuring of government.
With changes like this, our national system for sports, whether
competitive or social, will be able to rally the strength of the whole
nation.http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/english/society/2012-09/19/content_485766.htm
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