Sport in China

All that gold does not glitter

Questioning a sporting triumph

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Can anyone give me the amount of money the government of China spends on Olympic athlete training? Bet it is a lot more than the U.S. government.The U.S. Olympic committee, like any other no-for-profit organizations in the U.S., has tax free status. Schools usually don't pay taxes in the U.S.So I guess the complaint is that BOCOG pays Chinese income taxes as do schools and universities in China while taxes are not paid in the U.S.Is this right?


Even by the prevailing anti-China standard of this paper, this article on the Olympics was exceptionally mean spirited. Has nothing positive come of China's hosting of the Games? The article's insinuation that China should follow India's athletic lead is absurd. One can only deduce that the Economist would prefer to see China prone and prostrate in athletics.For an illustration of this paper's self dealing, consider the comments made on August 21 in the article, "Britain's record-breaking performance.""A shot of public money has undoubtedly helped a lot.""The way public cash is awarded, ..., has sharpened the incentives to take a more professional approach."The article even heaps praise upon John Major, proponent of public financing for sports in the UK, calling him victor ludorum (winner of the games).In the same issue but with a change of scenery, somehow public money becomes obscene."Central planning in sports has its limitations."A litany of quotes on how state spending on athletics is a waste of money follows. A sampling of pejoratives contained within: profligate, waste, unfair.How were these articles possibly edited and pasted into the same issue of the Economist without heads exploding in Westminster?


I just don't get it. Winning lots of gold medals or any medal for that matter used to be a very good thing. How did it turn into such a bad thing? This is bewildering. Did I inadvertently end up in a parallel universe where things are mostly sour?

I used to dismiss the idea that this newspaper had any bias against China but now I'm not so sure ... what with the stupefying ability to find the most negative perspective on a basically good thing as long as China is involved. This is a high art. Wow! I'm floored!


Unfortunately, The Economist discourse on China's sporting triumph is weakly substantiated if not outright superfluous. The Chinese way of training the athletic elites may not be the best or most acceptable to the eyes of the West, but at least it has brought home 47 golds till this moment to top the medal list, 19 ahead of the nearest rival.

It defies common wisdom to argue that commercialized sports would be the best way to reach the pinnacle of sports arena and secure more gold medals in Olympics. The comparison of China with India has been unfortunate.

The chart shows that Britain has 0.28 gold medals per million population, far above China. One would wonder how many of these gold medalists were born and bred in Britain. If world top class sports-persons can be bought over by and later represent the rich nations to compete in world events, then obviously commercial sponsorship has its unsurpassed advantages. However, there is no need for China to import any, it only exports.

Just wait till London organizes its 2012 Olympics.
(Tan Boon Tee)


Here is a much better article on this issue: are some quotes:--------------------------"The government has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars... according to medal-winning potential -- and...candidates with a serious shot of winning medals. ...a stark example of an intensifying arms race... seeking to win Olympic gold. Governments have long viewed the Olympics as a proxy for national success...""...the U.S. does give tax-free status to the U.S. Olympic Committee and to university sports programs that offer expenses-paid training and education."-----Please note that "the government" in this article means the German Government, not China government. It's an article about the reversal of Communist-style centralized systems.


For those who like to criticize China's human right, please read this news from IHT."JOHANNESBURG: JOHANNESBURG — The white owner of a construction company, initially sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for ordering that a black man be beaten and then thrown to a pack of lions, was released Thursday on parole — a stunning turn in the notorious "lion's den case" that has left many South Africans enraged."( expected, certain white people like to criticize others (asians, blacks, jews, arabs, etc) of all kinds of human right abuse. But, when it comes to them, they nullify themselves of any possibility of committing any human right violation. All these talk is a lot of non-sense. Bloody hypocritical! Don't talk about human rights if you only intend to apply it to non-whites.The worst part is that the convicted workers (non-white) is given 15 year prison without parole. Huh, what an abuse!!!


"This funding will allow our governing bodies to set in motion the most ambitious programme we've ever seen in this country for spotting talent and turning it into medal success on the world stage." Q: Who has made such statement?A: Tessa Jowell in 2006.Q: Who?A: The Olympics Minister and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.Q: From which country?A: From UK, also known as the "Great" Britain.Q: How much funding?A: £600m added to the £60m a year already targeted at elite athletes and potential medal winners.Here is the link: Here are some other quote:"The additional £300m means all Olympic sports can focus on programmes that will contribute to the target of fourth place in the 2012 medals table." --- Simon Clegg BOA chief executive."with this new funding we can prepare for an even brighter future with many more gold medals to celebrate." --- Tessa Jowell


"But some Chinese are openly questioning China’s route to Olympic triumph: unfettered investment by a gold-fixated government that controls the careers of athletes.What about rewriting that as below:"But some Non-Chinese are openly questioning Pure-Capitalist route to Olympic triumph: unfettered investment by a gold-fixated private-enterprises that controls the careers of athletes."Both options are not good and do harm.

Mac Gyver

Scathing article on China. Criticism is due, many of those athletes are indeed deprived of a normal life. This would be a fine article had it been accompanied by a larger article focusing on achievements. Seems unnecessarily harsh. Can't we write something positive about China in at least one of these Olympic articles, good things have happened."breakthrough for the yellow race in an event dominated by black people" is not the sort of language I'd like to see regurgitated by this publication.


I would have gone with the title: "China's great leap forward in gold medals"In the short-term, China's Olympic performance will no doubt inspire strong nationalism. However, once feelings of inferiority are completely dispelled (e.g. no more "sick man of Asia"), Chinese people will no doubt begin to question such state-supported initiatives.Shelly, by comparing China's investment in Olympic athletes to America's dalliance in Iraq you've conceded the point. Neither taxpayer receives much ROI.


We are back to the days of gladiators where the emperor puts his strongest slaves to entertain his people making sure that they get the best food.

Shelly Li

Let's not forget that a heavily state-sponsored sports system wouldn't work in a country like the US anyway. Broke as it is, the US government really has no money to spare!

If the Chinese government has some extra cash to burn, it's up to them how they spent it. Better investing it in some olympic atheletes to boost the national pride, than invading other courtries and killing innocent lives. If you think the chinese government's ROI on their cash is poor in this olympics, talk about the US government's ROI on the Iraq war! By the way, how much is the gas price today?

The author seems to believe that a population-weighted gold metal ranking is more reasonable. Why don't NBC rank Jamaica at the top then?


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.


So it is never a problem when America and Britain pours huge amount of money on training athletes but a huge problem when China does it. I smell double standards topped with sour grapes.



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