Change from pleasing the god to man - comparative research of evolution between olympic movement and chinese folk physical culture

Por: Wanyu Yu e Weiming Le.

Athens 2004: Pre-olympic Congress

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As we all know, the Modern Olympic Movement originates from the Ancient Olympic Games over 2000 thousand years ago. The first and foremost Ancient Olympic Games were one of religious celebrations, among which the athletic festivals have become the mainstream of modern sports in the world. Just like the Ancient Olympic Games, the religious celebrations in ancient China also included sports activities, some of which were spread up to now. The author of this article gave them a definition, that is Chinese Folk Physical Culture. So analyzing and comparing the origin, evolution and development between the Olympic Movement and Chinese Folk Physical Culture will help to generalize the law of Chinese Folk Physical Culture and promote the development of Chinese Folk Physical Culture.


The method of literature and information; the method of logical analysis


  1. The origin of the Ancient Olympic Games and Chinese Folk Physical Culture were roughly close. They were influenced by the activities of education, military affairs and religion in the ancient Greece and China respectively, and among them religion made a great influence.
  2. The evolutionary course of the Olympic Movement and Chinese Folk Physical Culture over 2000 thousand years was influenced by the social system, the education system and the religious custom, among which the influence of the religious custom was a direct course. The Olympic Movement stepped into the course of breaking away from the fetters of the feudal religion since Pierre de Coubertin and his colleagues who were devoted to reviving the Olympic Movement. It’s difficult for Chinese Folk Physical Culture to break away from the direct influence of the feudal religion because China had the steady environments of the feudal religious customs all alone.
  3. The development of today’s Olympic Movement is facing the crisis of the fanatic and unreasoning worship that beautify the men into Gods. The Olympic Movement is contriving to get rid of the crisis. The development of today’s Chinese Folk Physical Culture is a good chance to break away from the fetters of feudal religion and has powerful life-force and fine prospect.


The Modern Olympic Movement has achieved vigorous development because it has finished the change from pleasing the Gods to pleasing man fairly well. Chinese Folk Physical Culture will achieve its new development as long as it breaks away from the fetters of feudal religion as soon as possible.


  1. Pierrede Conbertin, Les assices philosophiqres de polympisme moderne, L`idée olympiqre
  2. Yu Wanyu, Fu Qiugen, A Preliminary Research on Chinese Folk Athletics, the Anthology of the Sixth National Conference of Athletics Science.
  3. Xie Yalong, Research On the Olympic, Press of Peking University of Athletics, 1994.
  4. Fei Xiaotong, About Ethnically Distinguishing, Chinese Social Science, Album 1, 1980.



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