Modern Sports in China

Modern Sports in China

Felix

A wise man once said, the only thing in this world that does not change is change itself. As the world's most populous country and the world's second-largest country by land area, China has a long history of more than five thousand years. Since the People Republic of China was founded in 1949, great changes have been taking place in many aspects, including the economy, public policies, the military army, and so on. One of those changes that impressed me a lot is the transformation of people's outlook and attitude towards sport. There are numerous factors that led to this transformation. Here I want to list some of the main reasons.

China has one of the oldest sporting cultures in the world. Dragon boat racing dates back about 2000 years ago and remains a traditional event held around China every year. There is evidence that Cuju, a sport similar to football, was played in China during the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. From the Song Dynasty on T'ai chi ch'uan and similar qigong martial arts activities have became popular in China. Today, some of the most popular sports in the country include basketball, soccer, table tennis, badminton, swimming and snooker. Board games such as go (known as weiqi in China), xiangqi, and more recently chess, are also played at a professional level. Prior to 1990s, sport was not China's strong point. Many sports were not widely practiced at that time. The influx of modern sports appeared in China at the beginning of the 21th Century. The People's Republic of China has emphasized sports and the government funds and trains young talented players into professional players. Due to the big support from the government, China's professional sports started to prosper. Consequently, in recent years, many well-known athletes have been emerging in China, such as the retired Chinese basketball player, Yao Ming,selected by Houston Rockets as the first overall pick in the 2002 NBA draft, and Liu Xiang, a 110 meter hurdler, the first Chinese athlete to achieve the "triple crown" of athletics: World Record Holder, World Champion and Olympic Champion. The list will go on. China led the gold medal count (51) at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, and in this year's London Summer Olympic Games, China was the second in the medal count.

Many people think that China now is already a sporting giant. Is that the case? My answer is no. China can only be called a gold medal giant. Even though there are hundreds of thousands of gold medal winners and world record holders, the average national physical fitness is barely satisfactory, which resulted from the government's ignorance of sports for all. Fortunately, the Chinese government has already been aware of this problem and set about balancing professional sports with sports for all.

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