A discourse on China's sports system
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China's women won a greater percentage of its total gold medals and the country won more gold medals in new sports added to the Olympics in the past two decades. In China's system, any child who is recruited by a team will have a chance to develop his or her talent without financial obstacles, and many of China's top athletes come from poor rural backgrounds. This is not true in market-based systems, where a family's financial resources could limit children's opportunities in sports.
In July 2008, Money Magazine compared the finances of the families of two young women who were members of the Chinese and American Olympic teams for taekwondo - a minor sport in the US. It found that the Chinese family was relatively well off, but the American family had been forced to sell its home to finance the daughter's sports expenses, and had not saved any money for her to go to college. The Chinese athlete would get automatic admission in a college because of her achievements in sports.
Furthermore, government investment in sport is on the rise worldwide. One example is Britain, host of the 2012 Olympic Games. Since 2004, the funding of the British Olympic Association has increased by 80 percent. At the 2008 Olympics, Britain was placed fourth - up from its worst showing of 36th in 1996 - and it is currently requesting even greater funds to prepare for next year's Olympic Games in London. Japan, Russia, Germany and Australia are other countries that have increased government spending on Olympic sports.
Having a government body in charge of Olympic sports is not a problem in itself. The problem in China right now is that there is not enough diversity in the organization of sports.
In the US, for example, there are many different national organizations that are independent of each other, including big-time professional sports teams like the NBA and NFL, two national collegiate athletic associations called NCAA and NAIA, the US Olympic Committee with 45 affiliated national sports governing bodies and 35 multi-sports organizations, and a multitude of other organizations, such as Little League Baseball and American Youth Soccer.
In China, an increasing number of national-level championships have been created. But they are not mutually complementary, nor do they have the necessary national-level organizational structures. Sports events at the college level have increased, but they are still underdeveloped.
Though the State General Administration for Sports needs to improve its operations, more importantly the authorities have to expand or create other nationwide structures that serve other goals besides the pursuit of Olympic medals.
The author is a professor of anthropology at University of Missouri-St. Louis.
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