China is still not professional

‍‍It’s been four days since the opening ceremony. For athletes, audience and organizers, things are getting into the groove. Winning two silvers, Su Bingtian and other excellent Chinese athletes has made breakthroughs in the events which Chinese are not best at.

When it comes to track and field events, people always think of Usain Bolt, Kenenisa Bekele, Yelena Isinbayeva and other famous names, as if leading athletes are the only index of any given countries’ level in those sports. But the truth is not that simple.

Take TV broadcasting as an example, do you know which country in the world has the most professional TV stations in broadcasting track and field events? If your answer is the USA, the UK or Japan, then you are wrong. It is Finland. The first IAAF World Championships was held there in 1983, which received a lot of praise from all over the world. Since then, Finland has taken charge of producing TV signals of track and field events for the Olympic Games. On the other hand, China is more experienced in producing TV signals of table tennis and badminton events. That’s why when held in China, marathon and other sports which are usually enjoyable to a large audience abroad, are only considered to be means to promote the hosting cities by many Chinese. Due to lower ratings, hosting cities need to pay good money to CCTV to air the game to increase publicity.

From this perspective, maybe we can understand why organizers of the IAAF World Championships 2015 Beijing arranged the confusing drumming performance during the 10000 meter marathon. They just intended to make the event more entertaining for the audience. But for athletes, the drumming was disturbing. Pianist Lang Lang’s performance in the second event day had the same influence on the competitors in men’s 100 sprint.

I do not want to badmouth China athletics. Although China still has a long way to go, it have made dramatic progress. More matches are being broadcasted, with more audience and participants attracted. China merely needs more time.‍‍