China's dominance at the Olympics, explained.

China is one of the best performing countries at the Olympics, despite not being a country with a strong sports culture. How did China become so good at winning gold medals? And why does this matter?

0:00 Intro
00:41 How and why China's centralised system came to be
3:44 Tian's clustering theory and how its applied
6:42 ty Private Internet Access!
8:26 The five word principle and it's impact on China's big ball sports
11:34 The future of sports in China + Chinese peoples thoughts
16:52 Conclusion

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References

Zheng and Chen's paper is soooooooooo gooooddddd, it's incredibly well written and I referenced their work so much for this video. Despite being written in 2016, so much of Zheng and Chen's observations of China's strategies have 'come true' in the 2024 Olympics when I was matching their theory with the results we saw. I would highly recommend checking their paper out!

Tian, M. (1998). The establishment of the theories of training based on clusters of sport and discipline and its scientific implications.Theories of training based on clusters of sports and disciplines, pp. 1- 37. Beijing: People’s Sports Publishing House of China.

Thanks for watching! And there is no better video more suited for me to hand you a gold medal for making it all the way down here in the description :) 🥇

Tags:
video essay, cultural commentary, social commentary, internet analysis, analysis video, sports essay, chinese culture, china, china's gold medal strategy, olympics, olympic gold medal, paris 2024, paris olympics, china's sports system, centralized sports system, table tennis, diving, sports strategy, olympic success, chinese athletes, sports in china, china in the olympics, athletic excellence, olympic achievements, china us rivalry, united states of america, america, sports culture in china, china's athletic program, la 2028, pan zhanle, quan hongchan, aini

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[whizwart]

I think you're right that most folks wouldn't say China is "sporty", but plenty of folks would say China is competitive, so I don't think many Western folks are surprised.

[aini_]

the IOC copyright striked my video so I had to cut out a part at 5:42 and later at 12:09

my point was that China decided to focus on artistic swimming because it was in the same category as diving and gymnastics, two sports they were doing really well in. China was able to transfer coaching knowledge, routine innovations and experience from those two sports to artistic swimming. Then, this year in Paris, China's artistic swimming team won gold for the first time.

sorry I had to cut this part out, next time ill be sure to act out synchronised swimming on my carpet so I don't get striked

[camu]

Not every Chinese person is sporty, but many are quite active, even at old ages, China is known to have their old guys doing crazy gymnastics in their parks, and Chinese people are a lot more conscious about their weight and staying healthy than many in the west.

[Definitely_Melnyx]

Its honestly as simple as how much financial aid those nations put towards their athletes and training facilities. Germany shows greatly how a lack of invest can result in a downfall.

[pennyshi]

For those you don't know, in 2022, the sports industry in China is worth of 452.164 billion US dollars. It's still growing at a rate about 6% every year. People I know in Chinese cities do exercises and sports activities quite often. Gyms are also everywhere and very affordable. You can't say it's not a sporty nation. People there love doing sports. They just don't like playing sports like American football, baseball, cricket...

[alperry]

I mean... having a government funded sports program is a big part of it. Also...china has a lot of people.

[Oceanatornowk]

By having the second most people and government funded programs that find children from an early age, specifically in sports where you can just grind out talent?

[nuzhatmaliat]

The asian nerd stereotype has seeped so deep into ppl's brains that they refuse to acknowledge a country of 2+ billion ppl have variety in interests, dreams, physical and athletic strength.

[joesligo]

I'm sorry but who thinks china isn't a nation that invests in sports?

[taaleyakhan]

Hi Aini, I love how clearly, I can hear you and appreciate your clear pronunciation of words without mumbling. and as always, the video is so well edited love the amount of work and research that goes into it. Have a great day

[blisswang]

i actually completely disagree with the entire thesis that China's sports was weak before 1980s. China's badminton and ping pong were both very strong before 1980s, and China's man basketball and soccer were peaked out at 1990s, during the full centralization stage. Tang Xianhu's generation were the first generation of badminton players returning from Indonesia and they were the foundation of Chinese badminton. Ping pong was strengthened by Rong Guotuan's generation of players bring in skill sets that pushed Chinese Ping Pong program forward. What really was the issue of badminton and Ping Pong in the west was the lack of sponsors to push the sports, whereas China's system of athletic school since elementary really help create world champions and winners in the Ping pong and badminton category. If you look at 2004 Gail Emms, who was the mixed doubles silver medalist at 2004 Olympic in Athens for British badminton, she admit in an interview that she couldn't even make a living after she retired. Numerous current US badminton player had to crowdfund for their tournaments and even the Olympics . There is no money in ping pong or badminton in the US, thus require players to have a rich background before becoming pros. It is different in basketball where Lebron James could cash in on his talent once he was ready for NBA, same goes for any NFL, or MLB ready talent. The Chinese system benefit in the disciplines like diving and gymnastics, because students started young and train year round and started to make salary when you make it to province team, those athletes thrive on talent.

US system needs to have money first for all the events without sponsors, otherwise they would need to follow an academic path that would require them to enter school with strong sports programs in their discipline. starting at junior high school, which may need to burn a lot of money before you succeed, this would push out the student with talent but no money in the beginning. But for all the major sports with money, most of the talents went there, because even in the backup leagues, you still make descent money. China's failure in the major sports like basketball and soccer can attribute to lack of junior programs to produce high level talents. Most of the clubs are separated from the athletic schools that produced talents. while no private academy picked up the slacks. while women soccer, basketball and volley ball still enjoy the same professional government program which produced more results.

China's sport programs are a complete different track from common academic world, whereas US have sports integrated into their school curriculum, but there will still be special schools for special sports, like Montverde Academy and the top basketball college programs like UConn or South Carolina or Kentucky. So what you see is that US produce players if there are huge money in the sport. Track and field is the only exception, but US traditionally have very strong track and field program in college. China's programs will continue to produce in disciplines that require training from a young age, as well as disciplines where there is insufficient sponsors in the US. While its major team sports will continue to suck until some entities starts to create junior programs to produce talent and make it sustainable and profitable.

[Atem_S.]

Sport is not for the rich, playing at high level is.. Trainer, nutrition, medicals, transportation, leagues fees, uniforms, .... That is what costing a lot.. Playing the sport isn't all depends what sport you play.. Soccer is just an ball, basket-ball a ball & net, Hockey a tick and a ball, ice hockey stick, puck, skate, league hockey, stick, puck, full equipment, skate, a rink...

[fayeteg]

My parents were born in the USSR. They are way more into sports than my generation, and in general, way more athletic. Even though, they both grew up in the countryside, and didn't have any sophisticated gyms and inventory, playing sports was their favorite way to spend their free time. Even now they lead pretty active lifestyles and exercise daily.
I can't even name one same age friend who's half as interested in sports as my parents and their peers. They literally keep up with so many different sporting events, while my friends and I barely watch even big ones, like Olympics.
I always attributed their generation's heightened interest in sports to them growing up in USSR.

[kpunk]

I've wondered why China seemingly does not invest well in major team sports (basketball, football) given that the cultural power potential for them is much greater than winning gold in niche amateur sports. This video is very enlightening in explaining why. Yao Ming has been a greater Chinese ambassador than all of China's diving/swimming/table tennis gold medalists combined. Finding the next Chinese basketball/football star would pay dividends several times over

[btlim]

i don't understand why you say china is not a sporty nation. every where i go in a park in china, i see people dancing, practising tai chi, exercising and moving. even in the usa, when i go to a park in the morning, it is more likely i see chinese people dancing. in fact, my grandma who is from china was a tight rope walker back when she was young, acrobat is part of chinese culture/street performing cullture, and that carries over to gymnastics beam. many moves in chinese acrobats also translate very well into gymnastics and diving. badminton is also huge. table tennis is also huge.

[maryguty]

you missed out on a large factor of how science and technology in athletic training and knowledge of human physician has grown and changed over these few years. Chinese Athletes are trained and nurtured more efficiently and scientifically than before. This is quite clear in the many post-race analysises on Pan's neo swimming style, a clear sign of a intense techno result

[noplace]

Aini makes some of the best video essays I've ever seen. I actually recommend them to my first year university students to learn how to structure an essay and how to make their argument clear in their writing

[nazerkem]

this was fascinating to listen to, thanks!!

[cmaven]

This was a good watch. I appreciate the insight into the Chinese perspective on sports generally. I mainly watched the Olympic swimming and the athletics, and I was interested to see some Chinese representation in the finals of both sports. While I think it's going to be a while before they challenge the powerhouse nations of the US, the Caribbean and East Africa in athletics, I noticed at least one athlete from China made it to about 70% of the events.
It was also interesting to see some of the other East Asian nations win gold medals, and I'm wondering how their wins will influence youth in their countries to increase their participation in sports.

[Turbo]

@aini thanks for making these high quality video