Defeat to defeat: Thus the reversal of the game of China

- Eyesight-Hershal Pushkarna

- China's Olympic journey from zero to hundreds of medals: Why has China, which has not won a single medal in the Olympics for years, hit the ground running today with a bunch of medals?

- Fifty years ago, China, which had a dry attitude towards Olympic competitions, is now haunted by the habit of winning a gold medal.

July 15. The 10th Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles, USA that year. Ever since the first Olympic Games of the modern era were held in Athens, Greece, on April 15, the conservative China, which has the ideology of staying aloof from the outside world, has not participated in a single match. But on July 14, he became a newcomer. A runner named Liu Cheng Chun took the initiative to represent China in Los Angeles. Despite being a glorious event for the country, the government showed great reluctance. Promoting Liu Cheng Chun didn't pay the fare to Los Angeles. A private educational institution raised thousands of dollars to raise funds, and at the behest of Liu Cheng Chun, Ray Mand was able to buy a sprinter ticket for the United States. The organization also presented Liu with the Chinese national flag, so that after winning the competition, Liu would publicly fly the Chinese name.

Unfortunately, such an opportunity did not come for Liu. Liu Cheng Chun competed against other competitors in the 100m and 200m doubles at the Los Angeles Olympics. With a humble face, he had to return to his own country. Although China's account was not opened at the Olympics, Liu Cheng Chun was persuaded by the first attendance and the optimism that it would last for the next match.

Fortunately for Liu, four years later, when the Olympics were held in Germany, the Chinese government showed little interest and sent a total of six competitors to Berlin. But the fiasco once blossomed. Not a single medal was enough for China to take the oath. China, which proved to be a vegetable radish against the hardened players of other countries, returned as washed radish.

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Eight years after the tragedy, China sent 21 athletes to the 19th London Olympics. (After Adolf Hitler started World War II on September 19, the Olympic Games in 190 and 19 could not be held.) But the Chinese government's move was a formality. The government only issued one-way tickets to the players. Didn't pay for return tickets as well as accommodation in London.

As the Chinese athletes could not afford to live in London's Olympic Village during the competition, they had to take refuge in a government school and cook their own meals. Not a single Chinese athlete out of 21 in the Olympics. The team returned empty-handed, but before that all the members had emptied their pockets of 1. I bought a good plane ticket to go home thanks to the borrowed money.

Another four years passed. Even at the 1958 Finland Olympics, not a single Chinese competitor was able to open an account with a medal. During this period China was imprisoned in the iron claws of the government of Mao Zedong, the leader of the hard-line communist ideology. Mao's instinct was to maintain friendly relations with other (read, political enemies) nations, not for sportsmanship or national pride.

His able disciple Zhou Enlai, who came to power after Mao's death, carried on the ideological tradition of the Guru. Rather, they went a step further and turned the playground into a political arena. Zhao's mind wandered when the International Olympic Committee allowed Taiwan, China's arch-enemy, to take part in the competition. He boycotted the competition, which resulted in not a single Chinese athlete being able to compete in the Olympics until 190.

In such a gloomy atmosphere, the new ruler named Deng Xiaoping came not as a ray of hope for China, but as a rising sun. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai used the broom of developmental ideas to wipe out the entanglement of communist policies in which the country was bound. Over the years, the speed of bullock carts, which has been stumbling and falling, has made the country's cart run smoothly for modernization and liberal economic policy.

Only five-foot-tall dwarf 'Avatar' Deng Xiaoping came out a handful taller than the giant predecessors who made a juicy subject like sports uninteresting. Instead of making sports a political hand, he started spending money for its development. With a five-year budget of about ૨૮ 50 million (heavy at the time), a special program called 'National Sports Development Program' was devised, under which emerging players were provided with equipment and world-class training.

Government spending and the hard work of the players eventually paid off. At the 19th Olympic Games in the US city of Los Angeles, China won a total of 75 medals, 12 of which were gold. This incident stunned the world. Until yesterday, China was going to be a rival to the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Japan and other countries which considered Chinese players as milkweed.

China's sports world received another boosting dose of energy in 2000, when the government increased the country's annual sports budget from ૪૨ 25 million to પર 213 million. With this huge amount, a new campaign called 'Project-119' was launched in which the number 119 was an indicator of the goal of winning 112 medals in the next Olympics.

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In previous competitions, Chinese athletes excelled in sports such as swimming, diving, badminton, table tennis, weightlifting and gymnastics. The medal tally was limited because of it. But now if the country wants to give more medals, it has to participate in more sports, for which new players have to be prepared. For this, sports training centers were set up in various cities of the country for various sports ranging from wrestling to javelin throwing. Which were meant to give special training to foreign experts in those sports. To encourage the players, the government announced a cash prize of ૨૯ 4,100 for the gold medalist and ૮ 15,000 and ૨ 15,000 for the silver and bronze medal winners, respectively.

The result? At the 2006 Athens (Greece) Olympics, Chinese athletes won a total of six medals, including six golds, and then a total of 211 medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, including 51 golds! Is. From the first Olympics of 19 to the present, China has participated in only 11, and yet the number of medals it has won has crossed 200. At the time of writing, China has won a total of eight medals in the current Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Count the scores of other medals won during the Games separately!

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Fifty years ago, China, which had a dry attitude towards the Olympic Games, is now haunted by the prospect of winning a gold medal. The Chinese government is not interested in silver and bronze medals. As a result, not only is the goal of winning a gold medal in front of the country's emerging athletes, but it is also physically and mentally tortured to achieve that goal. Across China, there are currently 17 giantp-sized, 150 medium and 6,000 small training centers called sports schools, with a total of 200,000 players training for 30 different sports.

The trainees who entered the international arena understood that physical labor was done in the name of fitness, but here they are routinely tortured. He has to grind in the name of training for 3 hours in a row. There is never room for a holiday in this.

The practice in the name of training in sports schools is unforgivable. There is a special program for children between the ages of 9 and 12 to become future Olympic athletes. These are the children who have been selected from those schools. Government-appointed experts (scout / scouts) go to the schools, check the physical abilities of each child and finally decide on which sport to prepare the child based on.

For example, if a child's body is not only energetic but also flexible, he will be trained in gymnastics. Those who are slightly taller than normal get volleyball and basketball training. Children with extremely fast reflex action / reaction are considered ideal for badminton and table tennis. Long-armed Bahubali children javelin thrower or Swimming candidate, short-armed one should be selected for weightlifting!

A swimmer named Ni Ching Ching, who has won many medals for China in the past, said in an interview, "While I was in school, some scouts came to my class looking for a future Olympic athlete. They took me with them without saying anything. In a few days my swimming training started. I did not know how to swim at all, but it did not bother me. Many times I realized that the natural design of my legs was to become a successful swimmer, so the government ski team selected me for swimming.

Another example is a footballer named Liu Huana, who never heard the name of the game in his school days. The government scout team spotted Liu Huana running agile on the school grounds, which led to his selection as a future footballer.

In this way, the children selected from the schools are sent directly to the Sports Scoffel, where their body X-rays are taken first. Bone density is measured and the child's future physical development is calculated. According to these medical findings, their rigorous physical training lasts for hours. The goal of winning a gold medal for the country is deeply etched in their minds.

Reading-writing-studying of children who are constantly striving for this goal should be pushed to the margins. The result of this madness is that many Olympic athletes in China today cannot read or write anything higher than what they did in the fifth-sixth standard. Call it progress or decline?

This is the trip to China in the Olympics, which started from Naleshi and reached its glorious destination. Where does it come from and where does it reach!