Gold Rush: Politics or Sport?

18 August 2008 |permalink | email article

China, like the Soviet Union at the zenith of the cold war, is obsessed with a desire to win more Summer Olympic gold medals than the United States.

But Matthew Forney, a former Beijing correspondent for Time now writing a book about raising his family in the nation, writes that unlike in the Soviet Union capitalism has infiltrated nearly all aspects of Chinese life–except sports. 

“Chinese compete like Adam Smith in the market place but like Vladimir Lenin in the arena.”

Beijing’s political strategy has been to push athletes into sports the Chinese really don’t care about.

But the government has predicted that Olympic events could yield more gold medals for China, allocating extra money to train athletes in obscure sports and dispatching scouts to find children who fit certain sports molds.

Forney suggests that China is gaming the Olympic system, which began after the Sydney Games of 2000 by launching Operation 119 – the number of gold medals available in individual sports with oddly high medal counts.

Consider canoeing/kayaking, for instance, with 16 golds up for grabs.

Unlike the U.S., where tens of millions of children compete in the sports of their choice, Chinese sports schools now train about 200,000 professional athletes, more girls than boys, with Olympic goal as the ultimate prize.

At last count China led the U.S., 35 to 19, in Beijing Olympics gold medals. You wonder if these games are more about national pride and beating the Americans than love for the sport.

Quotes

** “Keep your sense of humor.” – McCain, refusing to comment on the new anti-Obama book smearing his opponent even though he bashed the swift-boating of Kerry in 2004.

** “Bush should be ‘too ashamed to speak about the occupation of any country, he is already occupying one.’ – Mohammed Sayed Said, editor of the Egyptian independent daily Al Badeel.

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