Archive for March, 2008

Recently some activists and foreign politicians are utilizing the Olympics to draw attention to China’s political issues. What they are trying to is to put the problems under the microscope and politicize the Games. China’s foreign minister claimed that those so-called human rights groups are violating the Olympic charter and their malicious intention will never get a way.

Olympics belong to the athletes and those people who yearn for peace. It’s a stage for them to communicate with each other. It’s a way for us to make the world a better place. Many international communities and foreign leaders have expressed their broad support for the Beijing Games. And we are going to appreciate them support by holding the most splendid Olympics in the history!

According to the latest research, Beijing’s air quality has been improved a lot. However, IOC and some athletes still show their concerns at it. Last Monday, Jacques Rogge, the president of IOC, said that certain outdoor events lasting more than one hour could be postponed during the Olympic Games if pollution levels exceed certain thresholds. With a view to athletes’ health, they would like to delay the competition for a couple of hours until the pollution reaches an acceptable level.

It’s quite considerate for them to make this decision. But I don’t think that will happen in August. In order to achieve the goal of “Green Olympics”, the government has taken many kinds of measures, such as planting more trees，restricting cars. Apparently, we have harvested some effect. With great conviction, I believe the sky will be bluer and bluer and air will be fresher and fresher.

According to a new study, male athletes still attracts 90 percent of reporting on television news and sports highlights shows, which is as same as the results taken in 1989, even though a great change has happened on women’s sports over the past three decades. The extremely uneven proportion of TV coverage between men and women’s sports exists all over the world. Many broadcasts even don’t involve in women’s sports at all and no women anchors appeared on any of the three network—affiliated news shows. And sometimes when a broadcast referred to an outstanding female athlete, like Sharapova, the commentators are always apt to comment on her appearance instead of her amazing performances.
This is the reality of women’s sports. They get trained as hard as male athletes, but they can never get the equivalent attention as men do. What accounts for this? That could be a dozen of reasons, such as people’s stereotype of sports and women. However, can we change the situation? What can we do?
The researchers suggested that the audience should demand the coverage of women’s sports. As far as I am concerned, to some extent, only if the producers and reporters show their interests on it, it can be improved. They are the persons who lead audience’s attention on male’s athletes. What if they talk about women’s sports from dawn to dusk? So obviously, how to arouse sports media’s interest on women’s sports is also a significant problem to resolve.
To fight for its TV coverage, women’s sports still has a long way to go. Best wishes for women’s sports! Hope we can know about sports deeply through female athletes!

A few days ago, China has planned to play this month’s World Cup qualifier with Australia at Kunming. However, this plan evoked Australia coach Pim Verbeek’s strong dissatisfaction. He said China did that deliberately since the only way for China to beat them is to make it as difficult as possible. And he proclaimed that they will respond to the challenge by a victory.
To tell the truth, I cannot understand Verbeek’s behavior. What was he doing?Is he scared? Is he agitated by the plan? His response is completely out of our expectation. China has arranged several matches in Kunming. Many famous team, like Real Mardrid, has played there before. But no one has ever complained about the high altitude and long distance. Indeed, after the draw against Iraq, China has to win this match. But we will do our best to win the game by the skills and our tactics, not changing those objective conditions. As for Australia, if you are good enough, show us in field!
Mr. Verbeek, we are looking forward to your team’s “extraordinary” performance in Kunming. Don’t disappoint us! Enjoy!

In Feb 24th, German diver, Sascha kLein beat Zhou Luxin in men’s 10m platform, becoming the first as well as the last foreign gold medalist of this World Cup. His victory crashed China’s diving party and also put the Achilles Heel of Chinese team under the sunshine once again since last year’s world championships in Melbourne.
This World Cup was held in Water Cube, National Aquatics Centre. Most of the audience was Chinese and of Course, what they anticipated was a big haul of medals dropped into the pocket of Chinese team. Zhou’s failure disappointed them. In their point of view, he should have won the game. As for Zhou, the great pressure accounted for it and he was not in a good condition, especially after the previous World Championship.
However, to some extent, the Achilles Heel delivers a glimmer of hope to other nations and motivation to China. Diving is one of best events of China. They never lack of marvelous divers. China’s nation anthem winds around the venue once and once again, which looks like a great mountain suppressing other teams.
But the Achilles Heel gives them an opportunity to crawl out of the mountain. The German caught it. When I saw them cheering with champagnes, I also felt happy for them. They deserve the hard-won medal. Meanwhile, China should happy for them too. We can imagine how awful it is when you cannot meet a rival. Now they have a lot of work to do. They need to find a way to consummate their routine to bring the glory back.
Hope China will fulfill their mission perfectly.
May the best man win!