Changing China
Giant on the move
China hits home run
China’s upset 4-1 win over Taiwan in the first round of the World Baseball Classic earlier this month was a small but important step for a team that battles for recognition and funding.
Although trounced by Japan and South Korea in earlier matches, the politically tinged match renewed China’s bragging rights over the self-ruled island, which Beijing declares as its own territory and has vowed to bring back to mainland rule, by force if necessary.
The loss was a bitter pill for Taiwan to swallow, which was also beaten by China at the Olympic Games, and has a far deeper baseball following stemming from U.S. aid and soft power flowing into the island in the decades after the Chinese civil war (1945-1949).
“We have to accept it, and the fact that China have made great steps in baseball,” said Taiwan coach Yeh Chih-Shien.
It was also a surprise for me, having already consigned Chinese baseball to the waste-heap of history, after it emerged in January that a local developer had started to dismantle Beijing’s Olympic baseball venue with a view to replacing it with a shopping mall.
The win over Taiwan aside, China finished eighth out of eight at the Olympic Games.
Baseball, like softball, has been trimmed from the Olympic line-up and won’t be played at the 2012 London Games. It will have to fight for inclusion at the 2016 Games against other hopeful sports, including squash, rugby, golf and karate.
What’s on the Olympic programme?
A gold medal to anyone who can name all 28 sports on the programme at the Beijing Olympics.
Struggling? The list runs from A for Aquatics to W for Wrestling. (Although ”aquatics” to my untrained eye seems to span a series of water sports – swimming, diving and water polo).
For baseball and softball, Beijing will be bittersweet — they will not feature in London in 2012 when the programme will be cut to 26 sports. They are the first sports to be axed from the Olympics since polo in 1936.
Both are relatively recent additions – baseball made its debut as a medal sport in Barcelona in 1992 and softball in Atlanta four years later. As quintessential American games they struggled to muster the international backing needed to keep them on the programme.
The American women have swept softball golds in all three Olympics, but Cuba leads the United States 3-1 in baseball golds. The USA baseball team, which does not include heavyhitters from the major leagues, will at least be represented in Beijing after failing to qualify for the Athens Olympics. The IOC plans to cut the programme to 25 sports by the 2020 Olympics, leaving a number of federations in fear of losing the unique exposure offered by the Games.
There is much talk of getting golf back on the programme after an absence of more than a century. Rugby union sevens too is a candidate and Twenty20 cricket might be fun.
What do you think should be in the Olympics and what should be dropped?
Cut all sports that were not played at the original games. By doing this more countries will be able to host the games.
How about the every 10 years, thank you.
