Master international standards and move to the cutting edge.
--Yao Ming
The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics kicked off today, however, just the day before yesterday afternoon, the Olympic tournament was already in full swing. Our women's soccer team, as the pioneer, was defeated by Brazil with a score of 0-5.
Despite the lackluster results, the women's soccer team has improved compared to the men's soccer team - which failed to even make it to the Olympics. In the past, netizens have often mocked the men's soccer team based on the results of the women's soccer team, and if the results of this year's Olympics are used as a criterion, the scale of this mockery may be further expanded.
In seven collective ball sports, including basketball, volleyball, baseball, rugby sevens, handball, field hockey and water polo, all of our women's teams advanced to Tokyo, while the men's teams were completely wiped out. Of all the sports in which our team participated, as many as 15 were women's sports.
Our Olympic delegation arrives in Tokyo
The fact that there are more women than men in Olympic delegations is not unique to our country. Traditional Olympic powerhouses such as the United States, Russia and Great Britain are no exception. The problem is that the situation in our country is indeed too serious.
At the current Olympic Games, our delegation sent a total of 432 athletes, including 298 female athletes, accounting for 68.9%, more than twice the number of male athletes.
And, for the last three tournaments, our Olympic delegation has become more and more unbalanced between men and women.
At the 2012 London Olympics, there were 171 male athletes and 225 female athletes, with 56.8% female athletes.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, there were 160 male athletes and 298 female athletes, with 65.1 percent female athletes.
And this year's Olympics saw a whopping 68.9 percent female athletes.
Who says women are inferior to men? However, while cheering for the good results of female athletes, we should also think rationally about why there is such a drastic imbalance.
01. What are the reasons why there are more women than men?
The roots of the "women's strength and men's weakness" in our Olympic team go back to the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
In that year, our delegation won only five gold medals, a stark contrast to the 15 gold medals won at the previous Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and the nation was disappointed.
Prizes awarded to our delegation at the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games
Officials of the National Sports Commission in charge of sports wrote a report before the Seoul Olympics predicting that our delegation would win 6-8 gold medals -- the true level of our sports at that time. The 15 gold medals won at the previous Olympics were due to the fact that many Eastern European sports powers boycotted the Olympics in the United States for political reasons, giving us a chance to win gold in many sports.
However, the common people's view of the decline in performance is very simple: the athletes sent out are not capable, did not try their best, and disgraced the country. Li Ning avoided the crowd when he returned home and slipped away, but he was still taunted by the airport staff: "It's not good to fall where you are, but to fall there?"
As a young man, Li Ning was known for his hard training.
In the face of intense popular sentiment, the National Sports Commission realized that although many people in our country do not like sports and are not even clear about the rules of the sport, when it comes to the day of the competition, everyone asks who won - the gold medal, which makes people feel good about themselves.
In 1995, the National Sports Commission officially released an outline of initiatives aimed at advancing the results of competitive sports in China, known as the Olympic Striving Program.
It is clearly stated in the outline that our country needs to make achievements in the next Olympic Games, Asian Games and other international competitions, which is a very arduous task, and that it is necessary to cultivate a group of professional athletes and give them all-round protection. However, the State and society have limited funds to invest in the Olympic program, so it is necessary to "ensure that key projects are safeguarded and the allocation of resources is more reasonable".
What are the key projects?
The National Sports Commission wrote clearly in the syllabus, and later someone summarized that the answer was just five words: "small, skillful, difficult, women and few", i.e., small-ball items, skillful items, difficult items, women's items and items with fewer competitors. These kinds of projects are either the yellow people have the advantage of talent, or the international competition is not yet fierce, or cultivate one or two top players can produce results.
Most women's sports have been in existence on an international scale for a shorter period of time than men's sports. Not many countries have the ability and willingness to invest in women's programs, and the competition is relatively less intense. When we raise the national effort to cultivate a number of outstanding athletes out, there is a fairly high probability of winning gold and silver.
In 2004, the women's ping pong team won the Olympic collective gold medal
This strategy is, in fact, the wisdom of our old ancestors: the Tian Ji horse race. Use the gold medals of many niche sports to make up for the lack of gold medals in mass sports. Although the spectacle and attention of sports programs are differentiated by high and low, the competitive spirit of performance is the same, and the gold medals are naturally equal.
02. Olympic glory, two sides of the same coin
Judging from the results of the Olympic Games, the Olympic Games Competitiveness Program has been implemented very well. Our country has made steady progress on the Olympic gold medal list, and the women's event has become the mainstay of our delegation's gold and silver medals, with the number of gold medals exceeding that of the men's event for seven consecutive sessions.
However, from the point of view of the development of sports for all, this program has considerable disadvantages: "small, skillful, difficult, women, few" discord - big ball sports, power sports, low-difficulty sports, men's sports, sports with a large number of competitors, the development of more than 20 years has been very unsatisfactory. The program has been carried out for more than 20 years, which is very unsatisfactory.
Think about it a little bit and you'll see that men's soccer meets four of these five norms ......
This year's Olympic Games, China's men's collective ball game almost a total loss, and the Olympic glory program of this strategy is inseparable. Football, basketball and volleyball have slipped over the years, and this strategy is also closely related to the three major ball sports.
For more than 20 years, other countries have been vigorously carrying out these projects, and although we have also made progress, it is not as fast as others. The result is that the gap between us and the international advanced level is widening.
For example, our women's soccer team has won the Asian Cup for seven consecutive times since 1986, and has also been the runner-up in the World Cup and the silver medal in the Olympic Games. At that time, we were at the advanced level of international women's soccer.
1999 World Cup, our women's soccer team 5-0 Norwegian women's soccer team
But after the new century, women's soccer performance began to decline:
In the 2004 Olympics, our women's soccer team lost 0-8 to Germany;
In 2011, our women's soccer team failed to qualify for the World Cup and then failed to qualify for the Olympics in 2012;
A five-goal loss to Brazil in the opening match of the 2021 Olympics exposed a huge gap with the advanced level of international women's soccer.
2021 Olympics, our women's soccer team 0-5 Brazilian women's soccer team
Similar slippery trajectory, may also be about to perform in our men's basketball team: the same was also a consecutive years of Asian domination, this year also began to be no Olympic Games.
2019 Men's Basketball World Cup, China's men's basketball team defeated the World Cup, lost the qualification of the direct Olympic Games, Yao Ming, chairman of the basketball association, was interviewed and directly stated the situation: "This time is considered to be another time we open our eyes to the world, the international level and we (pulled) is really getting bigger and bigger."
03. Love gold medals? Love sports!
The Olympic Committee added the phrase "more unity" to the slogan "Higher, Faster, Stronger" in response to the difficult start of the Games in the midst of the epidemic.
In fact, our people have felt the "unifying" effect of the Olympic Games much earlier and more profoundly than the international community.
Writer Zhang Shishan, after the defeat in Seoul in 1988, wrote an article that we have the right to take part in, which expressed the heartfelt feelings of the general public: who among the sons and daughters of the Yellow Emperor does not yearn for the revitalization of the nation? Even if it is just a victory on the sports front, which is guaranteed by the blood transfusion of all the people?
At that time, our country was not yet strong, and our economic take-off had just begun. In order to enhance national self-confidence and pride, we needed gold medals and success. It was against this backdrop that the Olympic Games Program was born, and it succeeded and played a great role.
But we should also understand, this main focus on niche projects of the parochial strategy, is a stopgap measure, can not be taken as a miraculous plan. The strength of a country's sports, the gold medal is only decent, the key is the foundation.
The question arises, how do you lay the foundation?
Some people will say, once our economic conditions are limited to focus on the development of those niche projects, and now we are the second largest economy in the world, the experience of those niche projects to the masses of the project is not on the line?
In fact, we've already tried.
In 2014, the collection of the national ping honored player, honored coach, honored chairman of the three identities in one, Cai Zhenhua, the new national football association chairman. This personnel arrangement, the purpose is clear, is to teach the "national ball" experience to the national football.
It's just a shame that the market size of the two programs is not in the same league, nor is the amount of money that needs to be invested.
The strength of table tennis in China is due to the fact that there is a whole system of youth training and coaching teams, from amateur sports schools to professional sports schools to provincial teams to the national team, and there is a large enough pool of talent at each level. This system can be supported by the national treasury, but for programs like soccer and basketball, which are fiercely competing all over the world, you can't count on the national treasury alone.
What is the way out?
Yao Ming, president of the National Basketball Association, gave the answer in that interview.
"It is necessary for us to go and climb as hard as we can, from the professional league to training to the combination of sports and education for the youth. We have the determination to go on. I will not stop the reform, we can not fail, it is necessary to go on more firmly. We now know the international format, it is necessary to look toward the international advanced level."
Yao Ming consoles Yi Jianlian at 2019 Men's Basketball World Cup
Promoting the commercialization of sports, launching professional leagues, and leveraging the power of the market to enhance physical education for youth and training for industry personnel is the format of the international advanced level, and it is also our way out.
On the down side, our sports industry is still very immature.
In many programs, if a person does not make it out of the path of being an athlete, they will have a hard time finding another job to support themselves. While it is a mere one in ten million loss for the country, it is a one hundred percent failure for the individual. No parent wants their child to take such a treacherous path, and the size of the market and the size of the selection of athletes is nowhere to be seen.
Indeed, as Mr. Yao said, we need to "crawl as hard as we can".
From a good point of view, today engaged in sports to face the speech environment, now than when Li Ning faced, too much better.
For example, Fu Yuanhui, just because of the "exhaustion force" of the best efforts and optimism, will be loved by the people; another example is Liu Xiang, when he was subjected to a lot of abuse, and now many people leave a message that owes him an apology.
Liu Xiang returns to the top after Olympic withdrawal in 2010
The reason for this is that our country has become strong, and our self-confidence and pride are now less in need of gold medals to show. Most people have come to understand that sports should be a joyful endeavor, and that doing one's best is the most important thing, with results coming in second.
When everyone understands this and can actively participate in sports, we can truly become a sports powerhouse.
