China's history at the Games

Writer and Olympic expert Xu Guoqi retraces how this year's host became a medal-winning powerhouse

Prior to 1895, China's attitude towards sports and physical training was ambivalent. Those in power saw sports as unrefined and as having little to offer in terms of moral training. But two things happened in 1895 that changed China's appreciation of sports and set it on a path to become the country challenging the US for medals in this year's Olympics.

The first was China's humiliating military defeat against the Japanese in 1895. The Chinese population partly attributed the loss to the fact that they were not as fit and strong as the Japanese. The Darwinian concept of "survival of the fittest" was taking off, and the idea that sports would save the "sick" nation became widespread. (Mao Zedong would later write his first published article about the importance of exercise.)

The second major event in 1895 was the arrival of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), which played a key role in educating the Chinese about modern sports. It was the YMCA members who, in 1921, pushed to establish the China National Amateur Athletic Federation, which was recognised a year later as the Chinese Olympic Committee. In 1922, Chinese delegate Wang Zhengting became the first Chinese member of the IOC, sealing China's link to the Olympic movement.

But it wasn't until 10 years later, at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, that China was represented at the Olympics. After rumours spread that the Japanese puppet state of Manchuguo was planning to send athletes, the Chinese hastily put together a five-man delegation with one athlete, sprinter Liu Changchun (pictured), who failed to make either 100 or 200m finals.

As the Nationalists fought the Japanese and the Communists throughout the 1930s and '40s, they managed to get athletes to two Games, though neither was a roaring success. Sixty-nine athletes went to Berlin in 1936 but failed to win any medals; the next foray was to London in 1948, where the team, again, failed to win any medals and was so short of financial support that they could barely afford the flight home.

Then politics got in the way. In 1949, the Communist Party defeated the Nationalists, forcing them to flee to Taiwan. From the 1950s until late 1970s, both Beijing and Taipei claimed to represent China and did everything possible to block the other from membership in the Olympic family. Heated disputes surrounding their exclusive membership claims plagued the international Olympic movement for many years. In 1952, in order to boost its international legitimacy claim, the newly established Communist regime tried hard to take part in that year's Olympic Games in Helsinki.

The IOC did not invite Beijing to participate until a day before the opening ceremony. The Beijing delegation eventually arrived a day before the Games were due to end. Premier Zhou Enlai was nevertheless defiant, saying: "It is a victory for the PRC when its flag is flying at the [Helsinki] Olympic Games. Being late was not our fault." Taiwan chose not to attend the Helsinki Games because of Beijing’s presence.

In 1956, to protest Taiwan's membership in the Olympic family, Beijing withdrew from the Olympic movement and did not return until 1979. Though the Olympics in 1980 should have been an excellent moment for Beijing to showcase the arrival of the "new" and "open" China, the country decided to follow the USA in boycotting the Moscow Games.

The Middle Kingdom would get its big chance in Los Angeles four years later, 52 years after it competed in the Olympics there for the first time. This time Russia was boycotting, which played into China's hands – the country which had never before won a single gold medal took 15, starting with Xu Haifeng's victory in the men's pistol shooting. With 353 athletes at the Games, China had properly arrived as an Olympic nation and immediately expressed a wish to host the Olympics itself.

Now China has the Games at a time when, for the first time in its history, many think it could win more gold medals than any other country. At the Athens Olympics in 2004, a young Chinese team took 32 golds compared to the winning American team’s 35. At home, as the popular wisdom goes: Things will only get better.

Xu Guoqi's Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008 is available online, priced around 200RMB. Its Chinese edition is available from Oriental Press.