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Minister says focus on gold bad for sports
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CHINA must ditch its obsession with winning gold medals if it really wants to root out corruption in sport, especially ahead of next year’s Rio Olympics, the country’s sports chief said yesterday.
Corruption in international sport is currently in the spotlight because of a US and Swiss probe into soccer’s world governing body FIFA.
China, which is aggressively seeking to stamp out graft in Party and government ranks, has also sought to eject corrupt elements from its sports establishment, particularly within soccer, which has been hit by match-fixing scandals.
China was hit by two new scandals over the summer, with investigations into a deputy sports minister who sat on China’s Olympics committee, Xiao Tian, and another into the country’s volleyball chief, Pan Zhichen. Few details have been released on either.
Speaking at an internal meeting on fighting corruption, Sports Minister Liu Peng said the sector needed to think deeply about why it had a graft problem and take “decisive steps” to excise it.
“It is mainly focused on rewards for putting gold above all else, which has warped the spirit of sports,” Liu said in comments quoted by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
This has created “numerous problems” and must be banished, he said.
“We must ... increase thought education, instill a correct view of sports rewards and deepen sports reform,” Liu said.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Chinese athletes swept to the top of the gold medal table, a feat accompanied by a wave of national pride, the culmination of China’s “100-year dream” to host the world’s most prestigious sports event.
At the London Olympics four years later, China came second, after the United States.
“The gongs and drums are beating for preparations for the Rio Olympics, and we must choose the athletes for competition with a serious and conscientious attitude and strong feeling of the rules and responsibility,” Liu said.
Beijing, along with the neighboring city of Zhangjiakou, will play host to the 2022 Winter Olympics.
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