In the story, Tian Ji defeats the king of the country in a horse race by virtue of his skillful strategy and through subtle allocation of horses in a situation of inferior resources. This story reveals how to achieve overall victory through optimal allocation and strategic abandonment when resources are limited.
Illustration of a classic scene from Tennessee
It seemed that the state ruler's horses were clearly superior, but Tian Ji chose to give up the superior horses and instead focused his resources on the lower and middle class horses that were relatively weak against the state ruler's horses. In this way, although Tian Ji's horses were at a disadvantage in each race, he won the race under the overall strategic layout.
The brilliant achievements of Chinese sports at the Olympic Games may seem to be taken for granted, but in reality, it is a carefully planned strategic choice behind it. Despite the fact that China does not have an advantage in terms of sports resources and mass participation, it has achieved a high yield of Olympic gold medals by focusing on the development of niche, skillful, difficult, women's and small number of solo events, such as table tennis, badminton, gymnastics, diving, weightlifting and shooting.
This strategy seems to be effective, but at the same time it masks the lagging development of popular sports such as soccer and basketball. In fact, China's competitiveness in areas such as soccer and basketball is far inferior to that of Europe and the United States.
At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the Chinese Olympic team suffered a setback, winning only five gold medals. Under the pressure of a shocked nation, the sports authorities developed a gold medal strategy of "small, skillful, difficult, female and few". This strategy has allowed China to focus on niche sports, women's sports and solo sports at the Olympics, which are often easier to win gold medals.
Silhouette showing the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games
This strategy has to some extent sacrificed the development of popular sports such as soccer and basketball, putting these sports at a disadvantage in international competitions.
At the same time, Chinese soccer and basketball are less professionalized and have limited league levels, resulting in a lack of competitiveness for these sports on the international stage.
In recent years, the attention of Chinese soccer, basketball and other sports has increased, but there is still a big gap compared with European and American countries. The low degree of professionalization and the limited level of league play in Chinese soccer and basketball have led to the lack of competitiveness of these sports on the international stage.
Diagram showing the current status of soccer, basketball and other sports in China
In fact, China's investment in soccer, basketball and other programs is not considered high, and the investment gap is obvious compared with European and American countries. This has limited the competitiveness of Chinese soccer and basketball programs.
In the field of sports, although China has achieved brilliant results in certain programs, there is still a gap between its overall strength and that of European and American countries. Behind this is the weakness of China's sports industry, the lack of a sports atmosphere and the limited influence of competitive and professional sports.
Graphic representation of the current state of sports in China
To improve the overall strength of Chinese sports, it is necessary to start from many aspects, such as sports industry, sports atmosphere, competitive sports and professional sports, to comprehensively improve the competitiveness of Chinese sports.
In order to achieve leapfrog development in Chinese sports, it is necessary to abandon the "Jealousy of the Horse" type of strategy and comprehensively improve the competitiveness of popular sports such as soccer and basketball. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of the sports industry and the sports atmosphere, enhance the influence of competitive and professional sports, and make sports a real way of life for the people of China.
Illustrating the future of sports in China
Only by comprehensively improving the competitiveness of Chinese sports can China become a true sports powerhouse.
