2028 Olympics: everybody kung-fu fighting?

• Source: Global Times
• [21:06 September 05 2010]
• Comments

Editor's Note:

The first SportAccord Combat Games officially closed on Saturday in Beijing after eight days of competition. It is the highest level sports games to be held in Beijing after the Olympics Games in 2008 and has sparked public enthusiasm over the various martial arts or wushu invovled, most of which do not appear in the Olympic Games. What problems were encountered in running the Games? Will they be a model for future events? Global Times (GT) reporter Zuo Xuan interviewed Li Jinkang (Li), secretary general of the organizing committee and deputy director of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sports and Gao Xiaojun (Gao), president of the Chinese Wushu Association, on these issues.

Gao Xiaojun

GT: Where does the idea of hosting a martial arts "Olympic Games" come from? Which country will host the next Combat Games and when?

Li: The idea comes from the SportAccord International Sports Federations. It is a loosely organized institution which works to coordinate the sports federations in the world. In addition to the meetings, SportAccord intends to hold more contests and competitions to facilitate communication among the member federations. Along with the Combat Games, SportAccord is considering staging another two international games, one for mental sports and the other for beach sports.

Based on our successful experience with the Beijing Olympic Games, SportAccord awarded the first Combat Games to China. Before the event the General Administration of Sport of China and the Beijing municipal government had been preparing for it since the second half of last year.

It is designed to be hosted every four years. The venue of the next Games will be decided by SportAccord. Some countries have expressed an interest in hosting the next one but the official application procedure has not begun yet.

GT: How is the organization of these games going?

Li: The feedback from SportAccord officials, technical officials from individual sports federations, referees and athletes has generally been good. But there are still lessons for us to learn and space for us to improve. After all, this is the first time for the Combat Games.

The number of athletes is much fewer than at other world championships and the schedule is tighter. Only the top athletes of the year are qualified for the individual programs, which last just two days. The quick pace of the competitions added to the difficulty of our work because due to the limited space we had to change the facilities from one program to another in a short time.

Unlike the Olympic Games in which the athletes are organized by their nationalities, the athletes of the Combat Games are organized by the individual sports federations. We were caught unprepared a couple of times by this change. For instance, right before the opening ceremony, we lost contact with a referee from Greece. If it had happened during the Olympic Games, we could seek the help of the team leader. But at that moment we had to find him by ourselves because the representatives from the individual sports federations didn't know everyone in their team and had no clue where he was.

In the Olympic Games, athletes from the same country stay together in the hotels, but at this Combat Games, athletes of the same sport lived together. I remember there were two roommates, one from Hong Kong and the other from an African country, fighting with each other one day because they could not bear one another's habits. As the host, we have to handle these disputes efficiently.

GT: China is pushing for wushu, a traditional martial art, to become an Olympic sport, and the Combat Games feature it heavily. What's wushu's inter-national reach?

Gao: There are at least 200 million people practicing wushu all over the world, including 130 million in China alone. In China, there are 121 colleges and universities with wushu majors, for instance, Peking University and Tsinghua University, along with over 10,000 private-owned wushu schools. The total of students reaches 500,000.

There are wushu clubs and training schools in Europe, Americas, Oceania, especially in Asian countries and regions such as Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. We talk to them when they participate in contests or cultural festivals in China or other countries.