OPINION> Li Xing
Highs and sighs of a dream
By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-14 08:18

There are a lot of hoorays and sighes in the office as the most spectacular Olympic Games in history is taking place right in my home city.

For those of us who don't have time to go out into the venues, we try to steal minutes away from our desks to watch the competitions live.

Many of us could have been budding athletes in our teens, even though we bowed out at the last minute. A former young colleague of mine was once a teenage swimming champion in Beijing. Her swimming is no less beautiful than Michael Phelps'.

I was also a trainee in volleyball when I was 14. It was my answer to the call of the late chairman Mao Zedong, for "promoting physical education to improve the people's constitution".

The middle school sent me to a volleyball training school. I quit a year later because I couldn't keep a balance with daily training, school homework and helping my parents with two baby siblings. Had I stayed there longer, I might have met Lang Ping, the legendary Chinese woman spiker and now a coach for the American women's volleyball team.

However, watching games live is also trying. There is too much intensity, such as when the Chinese men's gymnasts were fighting, apparatus by apparatus, to win the long-coveted Olympics gold medal for the team event; and when the Chinese men's basketball team was trying to edge out the Spanish team.

There are disappointments that we should learn to cope with. It is not easy, because some are simply too hard, such as the Chinese men's soccer team, whose performance so far has shown little of their seriousness and stamina in the field.

I couldn't understand why, during their match with the Belgian team, the Chinese forward should fall at one time when he almost had the ball in his control, when he was right in front of the Belgian goalmouth and when only one Belgian defender and the goalkeeper were there before him.

I was told that the forward was diving for a violation call to win a corner kick. It is a common tactic, but I don't think the Chinese forward played it wisely. This blunder only revealed his or the team's lousiness.

But amidst all, I am getting a lot of inspiration from the athletes, especially their determination, their courage and their will. I've heard quite a few of my colleagues praising the Indian sharp shooter Abhinav Bindra, who won the country's first-ever individual Olympic title. They say he was so calm that it was simply no surprise that he should win, even though his closest competitor was the defending champion and Chinese shooter Zhu Qinan, who was almost equally good.

Above all, I am seeing the Chinese male athletes are elevating themselves in the sports arena faster, higher and stronger than their female colleagues, as they are making history in the contemporary Chinese sports, such as swimmer Zhang Lin, who won the silver medal for 400m freestyle and fencer Zhong Man, who won the gold for individual saber, or the men's basketball team, which gave the Spanish team a scare.

I couldn't but marvel at the three Chinese male archers. They'd never entered the event during the Olympics before, but this time, they came. They fought hard to challenge the almost invincible South Korean archers. By comparison, their female colleagues were a little disappointing, as they didn't battle as hard, even though they were more mature and experienced.

The Games is going on, and the following lines from the lyric, "Welcome to Beijing," should best express all our sentiment:

Let's try to challenge ourselves.

Welcome to Beijing; people who have dreams are all bravo.

If only you keep the courage, miracles will happen.

E-mail: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/14/2008 page10)