News that Yao Ming is suffering a stress injury in his foot which will end his American NBA season has sent shock waves through China.

Yao is the face of the Beijing Olympics, the center of the Chinese sports world, and a national treasure. Even the thought that he may not recover in time to represent China at the Games has the country on edge.

The Chinese blogosphere was flooded with comments from worried fans and Yao supporters. ‘I would rather lose my job or girlfriend,’ read one blog, ‘than lose Yao Ming from the Olympics.’ Another blogger lamented, ‘This is the winter of Chinese basketball.’

At a Houston news conference, Yao Ming said, ‘If I cannot play in the Olympics for my country this time, it will be the biggest loss in my career to right now.’

ABC sports analyst Christine Brennan said, ‘Yao Ming in many ways is a little Johnny Appleseed and a little Tiger Woods and a little Michael Jordan. Put all that together and that’s what this man means to China.’

All the worry may end up being premature.

Doctors say Yao likely faces a three to four month recovery after surgery, which would give him time to recover for the Olympics.

Some have even suggested that the injury may be a blessing in disguise because Yao will have more time to rest before the Games than he would have had he finished the season with the Rockets.
Source: ABC News

No one has ever taught an English football fan how to behave at a match. It seems like a very good idea. China is doing just that for the Olympics next year.

More than 200 Beijing Olympics cheer-squad volunteers are being taught at a time how to cheer and respond — in several cases for sports of which they have not close association.

These cheering training courses have been organized by Beijing Federation of Trade Unions. The courses are aimed at helping Beijingers better understand the different sports featured at the 2008 Games, and also instruct them how to be an enthusiastic and well-mannered audience.

Chen Huiping, one of the organizers of the group, says cheer squad training began in early June and aimed to prepare Beijingers for China’s biggest-ever sporting event.

He said, ‘People shouting out bad language when watching sport games is definitely not the public image we want to present to the world in the coming 2008. So, when we found that Japan and South Korea had promoted good manners among their people before the Olympic Games held in their countries, we wanted to do the same in China too.’

Cheering from Beijing Workers’ is a program driven by the federation, whose branches in different districts in Beijing have taken an active part.

Almost every week over the past five months, a training course on knowledge of the Olympic Games and good manners has been held across the city and more than 80,000 workers have taken part so far.
Source: China Daily

Wang Junxia was the first Chinese runner to win an Olympic gold medal. That was in the women’s 5,000 meters at the 1996 Atlanta Games. She is still the holder of a 10,000-meter world record set 14 years ago.

She is adamant China must do more than show off its national resurgence and an obsession with success.

She said, ‘I really don’t care so much about the medals or the league tables. Really, I hope the rest of the world gets to see China and its people for themselves, not just the good points but the bad points too. Then we can learn to correct them.’

China won 32 golds in Athens, second only to the Americans’ 36. Now the country is gripped by a fervor to win more at its own Olympic Games.

Wang, 34, is convinced, however, that the old adage — it’s not the winning that counts, but the taking part — will be understood in China eventually. She said, ‘It’s China’s first time to host the Games. People are getting the chance to see the Olympic spirit at close hand for the first time.’

Her crusade that sport and sportsmanship should be for all, not just a chosen elite of potential superstars, continues. At first she returned to north-east China, where she grew up, and founded a running club to spread the unheard-of idea of jogging for fun.

Her original club has grown to 20,000 members, and hundreds of thousands more have joined other clubs that have spread round the country. They are sponsored by an American company which has chosen Wang to be the ‘face’ of its nutritional supplements.

However, her idea that a nation will not become strongly interested in the medals won is difficult to accept. In Australia during the Olympics (which everyone seemed to enjoy) there was a strong surge of national pride at the medals won. Which seems only fair and natural.
Source: Daily Telegraph

As the host city of 2008 Olympic sailing events, Qingdao, a port city in east China, wants to build up its image as a ’sailing city’. Seems highly likely.

First of all, the international events play an important role. The 2007 Qingdao International Regatta, which is the second test event for 2008 Olympic sailing competition has just been completed. More than 300 competitors from nearly 50 countries and regions were trying for medals.

One has to be a little careful here. The experience of the Sydney Olympics showed that sailing events, especially in the larger classes of yachts, is as exciting as watching paint dry and the number of spectators was much, much smaller than the authorities optimistically expected.

Qingdao is the first city in China to open its Olympic venues to the public and the place was packed with visitors from both home and abroad. But, in the main, these would have been support teams, hangers-on, family and fans. Sailing is not a broadly attractive spectator sport.

The regatta organizers arranged four competition areas alone the coastal line which won the praise of International Sailing Federation (ISAF).

Apart from the test events and the Olympic Games, some other major international sailing events will be held in Qingdao.

The competition of 2008 Volvo Ocean Race China Station will be held in Qingdao. What’s more, the harbor of the Chinese team in American Cup Regatta is set up in Qingdao.

The Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center won praise from both home and abroad. The facilities in the Olympic Sailing Center have won the reputation as ‘the best in Asia’.
The center covers 45 hectares land, comprising of 30 hectares competition area and 15 hectares area for development.

A group of 16 International Olympic Committee (IOC) inspectors heaped praise on both the city of Qingdao and its Olympic sailing venue after a two-day review of the Beijing Games co-host.
Source: China Daily

In a sense, what the China 2008 Olympics lack is a load of highly motivated (think a lot of money) spin doctors to manipulate the overseas press. The Chinese government does not have such an operation which is in direct contrast to, say, the Bush administration in the United States, or, more precisely, the recent Blair regime in the UK which practically redefined the term ’spin doctor’ so that the UK had government by spin.

Now The Economist has tried to balance out the assorted stories and look at how the Games stand.

It mentions:

The impressive collection of new and renovated sports venues that will house the competitions, such as the National Stadium, and the equally impressive array of new roads, railways, and metro lines that will ferry the massive crush of spectators and athletes around the city.

It goes on to say other logistics seem likewise well in hand. The ticket program, organizers say, is proceeding smoothly. And although officials think they will need 100,000 volunteers to help run the games, they have already received more than 560,000 applications.

On the hardware side of the ledger, and especially when it comes to the venues themselves, it would seem every detail has indeed been attended to. Not only will all 37 venues be completed well in advance, officials promise, but they will be ready for any contingency.

Planners are also likely to succeed in bringing Beijing’s notorious air pollution down to more bearable levels during the games. If they have to impose draconian restrictions on traffic and industrial activity in the weeks before the games, they will have the authority they need to do so.

Even the weather is taken care of. Officials at Beijing’s municipal Weather Modification Office say the timely launching of chemicals into the atmosphere will allow them to dispel clouds and largely control the time and place of rainfall.

So on that side of the ledger everything is very well prepared. Far more so than other host countries were at the same time before their games. Athens was still slapping on paint up to the day of the opening.

The Economist lists all this and then gives the other side of the coin. It reads:

The government seems far less prepared, however, when it comes to the delicate business of handling the activists and pressure groups that are sure to use the event as a soapbox for their many and varied criticisms of its policies. Whether to do with labour rights, religious freedom, the mistreatment of ethnic minorities or general political repression, there is no shortage of causes, and no shortage of champions prepared to take advantage of the Olympic spotlight.
Much of the world assumes — with justification — that China hopes to use the games as a global coming-out party, raising its international profile and softening its image. But another important goal is to convey to the domestic audience that China has the stature and ability to take its place at the centre of the world stage. Neither goal will be well served next year by ham-fisted responses to criticism.

Which is equally true and fair. On the other hand, does China needs government by spin doctors? Should all decisions be based on what the world’s press will say? There is a middle position which, perhaps, it could be argued, China should take. The article presents both sides of the case very well.
Source: The Economist