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Six Chinese archers set a new page in the country's sports history
when they compete in the World Championships begins Tuesday in Florence
of Italy: being different from those state-support athletes, these
young Chinese marksmen are amateurs and taking the sport purely
for personal fun and absolutely on their own spending.
Ren Jingquan and his five teammates of Jing Cheng Archery Club
in Beijing will represent China at the Sixth International Archery
Federation (FITA) Indoor World Championships slated form March 19th
to 24th.
For the past 18 months, Ren took archery training courses in Jing
Cheng almost everyday after work in a foreign embassy to Beijing.
His teammates are all amateurs, too, who hold jobs in all fields
in the country's capital.
"This is the first time that market-oriented archery club
members in China take a chance to replace state-trained archers
to compete in major world event." said Zhang Ying, a spokeswoman
for the Jiang Cheng Club.
"Apart from taking archery in their spare time, our members
have their regular jobs. Most of them are white-collars," Zhang
added.
Chinese sports officials welcome the change and hope that someday
later market-oriented clubs will eventually play the ace roles in
China sports.
China grabbed 28 gold medals to finish third on medal tally at
the Sydney Olympic Games, but for the last five decades the country
have not been quite familiar with sports marketing and amateurs
clubs. Most of China's top athletes have been picked up and trained
in their early ages and later considered their exercises and competitions
as their "jobs" rather than personal interests and fun.
Clubs sports have been rooted in developed countries for hundreds
of years. But in China there had been no sports clubs until the
late 1970s when China adopted a policy of reform and opening up
to the outside world.
"It is assumed that there are about 100 sports clubs of different
kinds in Beijing right now," said Min Ton, General Manager
of Mana, a company promoting exchanges between cultures.
Those sports clubs have boomed in Beijing and other big cities
like Shanghai and Guangzhou as a new business as China has geared
up its steps to join the WTO in the last two years.
"It is very difficult to piece together a whole picture of
the none government support sports clubs in Beijing due to the neglect
by the authorities. We have tried many governmental sections including
the National Statistic Bureau, but failed in detecting any trial
of sports clubs." Min added.
"We have to turn to yellow pages and other methods. The turnout
is very encouraging. We found over 100 sports clubs in Beijing.
Their business range from scuba diving, shaping, surfing, fishing,
archering, cliff climbing, parachute diving, fencing, bowling, cross
country driving, roller-skating, camping, golfing, taekwondo, equestrianism,
fire balloon fling, para-gliding and many others," said Min.
Yin Ying joined a para-gliding club five years ago. She takes the
sport as a hobby, while her profession is a public relations manager
for Mana.
"I enjoin para-gliding. It costs me about 10,000 yuans (about
1, 200 US dollars) every year," said Yin.
Jing Chen claimed that it has more than 4,000 current members in
Beijing, a city with a population over 13 millions. To be registered
in Jing Chen will cost a person 7,500 yuans (about 900 US dollars)
for annual membership fee.
"Taking sports as a personal fun is a new trend in China.
In the past, sports could means every thing rather than personal
fun, " Said Min Ton, who returned after living several years
abroad in Europe and the American.
(People's Daily 03/20/01)
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