China is a dominant presence at the Olympic Games, and the National Games serves as a proving ground for Olympic contenders. Reporting on the Rio Olympics in 2016, the BBC noted that Chinese athletes have won more than 200 Olympic gold medals since returning to the Games in 1984.
The promised innovation for Tianjin comes in the form of a "sports feast of mass participation.” Some 7,000 “ordinary people” will be able to compete with professional athletes in 126 competitions in 19 sports, according to the organisers. Under the theme of Benefiting People, Healthy China, they have designated dragon boat, skateboard and rock climbing among the mass sports events. They report that construction of competition venues is going smoothly, with the construction of the 81 buildings finished by the end of May.
Everything in the official description of the Tianjin event suggests it will be bigger than ever, but its over-reaching ambition is one of the criticisms levelled against the Games in a 2013 editorial in the South China Morning Post. The 2013 National Games had three more events and almost as many athletes as the Olympics, but the two sporting occasions differ in direction, according to the editorial. “While the Olympic charter speaks of promoting friendly competition, gamesmanship and fitness, the Chinese equivalent has strayed from its original purpose - so far that it should either be reformed or scrapped.”
The editorial observes that the Games, launched in 1959 with the aim of getting the nation healthy through sport, have evolved into an extravaganza of spending excess, one-upmanship and unfairness since the late 1980s. A win-at-all-costs attitude has led to “bad sportsmanship, allegedly biased refereeing and cheating,” it adds.
China Daily and other publications cite scandals and incidents that illustrate the arguments in the editorial.
A report from a People’s Daily article in 2015, cited by Britain’s Daily Mail, points to extravagance and excess spending. The huge urban centre built in Shenyang to hold the 2013 National Games for 13 days is now a ghost town, the article says. Planners decided to build an entire infrastructure of businesses and homes around the event, and instead of being transformed into a thriving boom town after the Games, the area was abandoned.
The forerunner of the Games was the Chinese National Games, first held in 1910 during the Qing Dynasty. This ran until 1948 and the competition was re-launched under its current name in 1959, following the formation of the People's Republic of China.
#22161 Published: 05/12/2017 Printer-friendly page
