Chapter 863: A Last Resort

"No wonder your Fan Investment Group has never sponsored sports. Maybe it's because you personally don't agree with the practices of certain sports?" Shen Ying asked.

"Actually, we sponsored Olympic events in the early days, but later we stopped doing that kind of thing." Fan Wubing replied.

As early as the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, Fan Wubing introduced Oriental Magic Water Jianlibao to the market, and indeed achieved very significant results. However, at that time, the authenticity of competitive sports in China was still relatively low. Believable.

In the later years, some things went too far, and Fan Wubing was no longer interested in funding these projects. Moreover, due to the impact of the return of Hong Kong and Macau, Hong Kong businessmen were keen to sponsor Olympic champions, such as Fan Wubing was not willing to join in the fun of being rewarded with villas, gold, etc. Instead, he focused his energy on paying attention to education exhibitions, and his connection with the sports world was much weaker.

So much so that at a certain meeting between the General Administration of Sports and the press, a relatively influential official complained that some large domestic companies had almost zero support for the sports industry. This large company Naturally, it was referring to Fan Investment Group, but the other party did not dare to name it. After all, Fan Wubing's influence was too great, and the General Administration of Sports could not handle him.

For a long time. The domestic education system is an elite system, and the same is true for the sports system. Although the ability to compete for gold and silver in the Olympics is indeed very strong, it is too difficult for an ordinary sports enthusiast to participate in the Olympics through his own efforts.

In the final analysis, China was able to win the gold medal at the Olympics because of the contribution of the national system. After an athlete is selected into the national team, he does not have to worry about anything else. He has a canteen to eat, a dormitory to live in, and a monthly salary. allowance, and all they need to do is train hard and strive to achieve good results in the international arena. This nationwide system has brought many honors to Chinese sports. But this kind of gold medal winning is mainly the product of elite education, not based on national sports.

On the contrary, in other countries in Europe and the United States, sports are a form of exercise that all people can participate in. Anyone who likes sports can sign up to participate in many competitions. This can also explain why Lithuania can have more than 2,000 participating teams in a domestic basketball competition. Olympians from many countries are not professional athletes. University team athletes, even restaurant chefs, ordinary employees, and company employees can all have the opportunity to participate in the Olympics, and their performance in some sports is even higher than that of the Chinese team.

Generally speaking, the three criteria for measuring the world's sports power are the size of the sports population, the strength of the sports industry, and the quality of sports results. Only those who have a strong sense of sports, regularly participate in more formal sports, and frequently engage in sports consumption can be called a sports population.

For a country. The number of gold medals is indeed a reflection of honor, but if you want to become a sports power,

It is very necessary to open the door to ordinary people, and the popularization and improvement of sports among the public is the foundation and fundamental.

Take rowing as an example. This sport is quite unpopular in China.

There is almost no trace of rowing on China's lakes and rivers. Many people don't even know what rowing is. However, in European and American countries, rowing is so popular that it is beyond imagination. There, open waters and wide rivers are often dotted with rowing boats of all kinds. Many university gymnasiums even have dedicated indoor rowing training grounds. People who love and participate in rowing can be seen everywhere.

The same is true for sand volleyball. In China, there are only a hundred or so male and female sand volleyball players, and many provinces and cities do not have sand volleyball teams. The same is true for other sports. There are specialized boxing clubs abroad, and synchronized swimming is also very popular. So, in this sense, there is still a lot that needs to be done in China.

"Actually, taking stimulants or growth hormones occurs both at home and abroad." Fan Wubing told Shen Ying, "For example, Ma Jiajun in China used something called hematopoietic growth hormone. It can significantly improve sports performance. The main problem in middle-distance running is oxygen supply. If you can make athletes take in more oxygen during the competition, athletes can achieve better results. There are two ways to improve oxygen supply. One is to increase oxygenation. Concentration is to allow a blood cell to combine with more oxygen. This method is more difficult. The other method is to increase the number of blood cells in the blood. In this case, this drug cannot be detected, so Lao Ma used it. It was cool for a while. Of course, any medicine has side effects. People who use hematopoietic hormones are prone to fever, so we often hear stories about a certain Ma Jiajun team member who often had fevers and continued to play despite being sick. Of course, their competitive level is already very high. Yes, this must be acknowledged.”

"I've never heard of this before -" Shen Ying tilted her head and said.

"It's related to the country's face. There are some things that can't be said. Naturally, no one in the media dares to report it. It's just a private talk. Everyone in the industry knows it." Fan Wubing replied, "For example, back then, East Germany was also a gold medal country. You have been in Germany for a while, do you know this? "

"Oh, I seem to have heard of it a little bit." Shen Ying nodded.

The former East Germany was once the top gold medalist in the history of the Olympic Games, and it can also be said to be a model for China's national system. This country covers an area of ​​less than 110,000 square kilometers and its population is only equivalent to the population of Shenzhen. However, such a small country has created jaw-dropping results in the history of the Olympic Games.

At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the East German team's character exploded and they won forty gold medals. Trampling the United States under its feet, it ranked second in the gold medal list just behind its big brother, the Soviet Union. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, East Germany, which was in political decline, still won 37 gold medals, beating the United States by one. , ranking second on the gold medal list.

For two decades, East Germany was a major sports power on a par with the United States and the Soviet Union, ranking third in the world in terms of the number of Olympic medals it won, second only to the United States and the Soviet Union.

However, after the reunification of Germany, this East German myth was shattered, and its performance in the Olympic Games was not as good as the previous one.

Rather than saying that German sports are in decline, it is better to say that German sports are returning to normal. West Germany's sports system has always been very healthy. It does not overly pursue the number of gold medals in the Olympic Games, but allows the people's physical fitness to be freely displayed. Therefore, it is very satisfying to get about ten gold medals in each Olympic Games.

On the other hand, East Germany adopted a national system to organize sports in order to show the so-called superiority of socialism in comparison with West Germany. The so-called nationwide system, the official explanation is that when the country's comprehensive strength is still relatively weak, in order to achieve a breakthrough in a short period of time, an organizational system is adopted to concentrate the country's manpower, material resources, and financial resources to tackle difficult problems.

In other words, the national system mobilizes the resources of the whole society to help train a few elite athletes and try their best to win the most medals and trophies in large-scale international competitions.

But this way. The use of national resources is seriously inconsistent, and huge amounts of national wealth are spent every year to train elite athletes, but the sports, hobbies and physical fitness needs of the public are underestimated. The country selects young people with athletic talents for closed training camps, but the purpose is only to allow a few sports elites to compete for medals. As a result, the youth of hundreds of thousands of athletes has been sacrificed, and many athletes have even suffered lifelong injuries and ruined their lives. Eighty percent of athletes have difficulty making a living after retirement because they are uneducated and have no skills. Many of them also suffer from diseases or even become disabled due to excessive exercise.

There is another drawback. This is the formation of a huge interest group consisting of star athletes, coaches and sports bureaucrats. Gold medals bring great fame and fortune to athletes and coaches, and bring successful political achievements to sports bureaucrats, thus making the national system a catalyst for corruption in the sports world.

Not only that, doping scandals in the West are generally an individual act of an athlete, but within the national system it is an official act. The East German government even dared to require athletes to take doping. The East German authorities had systematically made at least 10,000 athletes take various banned drugs for a long time, and conducted systematic research and implementation on how to effectively pass competition drug tests.

Doping ban made East Germany shine in the Olympics, but it also caused the sudden death of more than 100 athletes and lifelong disabilities of countless athletes. Many female athletes became masculine and lost their fertility.

After the reunification of the two Germanys, the injured athletes took the East German Sports Minister and medical consultant Hopp to court and demanded compensation.

"However, there are some things that we have to do even though we know they are impossible." Fan Wubing said to Shen Ying, "China has been bullied by foreign countries for hundreds of years and has been enslaved by the corrupt Manchu dynasty for three hundred years. In such a state of exhaustion, national self-confidence can be said to have hit rock bottom. Originally, China was very high-spirited for several years after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Unfortunately, it was messed up by a group of people and fell back into continued backwardness. The low popularity is difficult to express. , In this case, if you want to inspire people and rebuild confidence, you need to think about competitive sports.”

In other words, even though competitive sports are known to be harmful in the short term, they must be continued.

"Of course, when competitive sports reaches its extreme, it will naturally return to normal. This is also an inevitable development trend." Fan Wubing finally said to Shen Ying very confidently.

"The Sydney Olympics are coming soon, aren't you planning to sponsor?" Shen Ying asked.

"I'm not going to flatter you. Others will naturally show their loyalty. This can be considered a time for advertising." Fan Wubing said with a smile.

What he doesn't care about doesn't mean that others don't care either. Naturally, there are many people who criticize him.