After the curtains for the 2008 Beijing Olympics came down, there has been a lot of discussion on the disproportionate allocation of resources for sports related activities. It was discussed that talents identified during their tender childhood years were the recepients of massive funding to develop into future world beaters. Interestingly, the locals reflected that although there were many sporting facilities around, they were not allowed to use them as they were reserved for athletes.
What puzzled me is the fact the China has communist roots. Having strong socialist origins would suggest a nation that promotes state managed and fairly allocated resources. This suggests the local Chinese public should have free access to the numerous sporting facilities available.
Why then does such a big disparity happens in China? For one, the foreign media may in fact be playing up the entire issue. However, colleagues from various parts of China told me that this is pretty much the present situation in their hometown.
Are the general welfare of the Chinese being scarificed for the select few in the quest for glory? Does this not contradict the ideology of the nation that has Communist roots? Can someone untwine my confused mind…..
I agree with most of the points Xinhua and other Chinese media is making about funding of sports in China. I think that China needs to have better grass roots infrastructure for popular sports like badminton, soccer, volleyball, tennis, basketball, table tennis, tennis, gymnastics and even weighlifting. For these type of sports there is no need to have children training from 6-7 years of age, China should spend more money on funding clubs/school at the local level for these sports. National/Provincial training centers should only be necessary then athletes reach 17-18 years old for these sports if they are trained under a good club/school system.
But the big question is if the government is really interested in making people play more sports or just in it for national glory. I think this is what Xinhua is pointing out, they believe the whole point of the gold medals is to make more Chinese people interested in sports no matter what the sport. What Xinhua is getting at is you need both support of sport at elite and grassroots levels for it to be sustainable.
Centralized training is good if the sports is not popular, but it could actually hurt performance in certain sports particularly where success is not easily attributed to certain physical attributes. Soccer is the best example, and even basketball to an extent. If you look at the Chinese Olympic Basketball team they are on average taller than the Americans players by two inches, but they did not make it to the semifinals. By selecting and training children based on physical attributes you would not have athletes like Usian Bolt, Allen Iverson, Diego Maradona, Justine Henin, Martina Hingis, Michael Chang, Andre Agassi or Susi Susanti.
By: Alexander Sterczek on September 7, 2008
at 4:18 pm