Xinhua News Agency, Buenos Aires, October 19th question: is the Youth Olympic Games a hope or a burden?
Xinhua News Agency reporter Ji Ye Gao Peng Ni Ruijie
The Third Summer Youth Olympic Games closed successfully in Buenos Aires on the 18th. From Singapore in 2010 to Buenos Aires in 2018, the three summer Youth Olympic Games and the two winter Youth Olympic Games in the past eight years showed the unique charm and value of this creativity, it also faces some challenges in practice. Where will the Youth Olympic Games go and how will it integrate into the overall reform of the Olympic movement when it cannot compete with the Olympic Games in terms of influence and commercial value?
Value
The Youth Olympic Games has been deeply branded with “innovation” since its birth, which is especially obvious in the project setting. In the first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, the three-person basketball was listed as an official competition project. Four years later, Nanjing Youth Olympic Games listed rock climbing, roller skating and skateboarding as performance projects; To this Youth Olympic Games, Sports Dance, karate and rock climbing became official events.
Li Lingwei, a member of the International Olympic Committee, said that compared with the Olympic Games, the Youth Olympic Games did not have much imprisonment in the project setting, mainly starting from the preferences of young people. In doing so, on the one hand, it increases the attention and participation of young people in the Youth Olympic Games; On the other hand, it also gives those sports that have not yet entered the Olympic Games a stage for display, so as to provide decision-making reference for the International Olympic Committee to adjust the Olympic project setting.
After the display and inspection of the Youth Olympic Games, three-person basketball, rock climbing and skateboarding have now been listed in Tokyo Olympic sports programme.
The Youth Olympic Games is also the “touchstone” to test a city’s ability to hold competitions “. As Dolby, the executive director of the Olympic Games department of the International Olympic Committee, said, the easy-to-digest and manageable scale of the Youth Olympic Games is an opportunity for those cities that are not yet able to host the Olympic Games. Many countries (regions) are interested in hosting the Youth Olympic Games. Some of them want to bid for the Olympic Games for a long time, but before that, they want to try to hold the Youth Olympic Games.
During the Youth Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee made a significant decision-to hand over the 2022 Summer Youth Olympic Games to Senegal. It is almost certain that if the Youth Olympic Games in 2022 were successful, Africa would not be far from the day when the Olympic Games were held.
Luo Ge, the former president of the International Olympic Committee who founded the Youth Olympic Games, said: “The Youth Olympic Games is definitely not a mini Olympic Games, but an activity that combines sports with education and cultural experience.” Looking back on the past several Youth Olympic Games, both the IOC and the organizers of the Youth Olympic Games attach great importance to cultural and educational activities, hoping to return to the origin of the Olympic movement and let it undertake the mission of conducting Olympic value education for teenagers.
From “talking to strangers” to the journey of nature exploration, from “dialogue with champions” to the development of professional skills…… These activities combine education with pleasure, stimulate young athletes to have multi-dimensional perception and thinking on people and sports, human and nature, human and society after competition, and greatly enrich the life experience of young athletes.
There is no medal list for the Youth Olympic Games. Multiple projects break the nationality (regional nationality) boundaries of players and participate in the competition. It is also to guide young athletes to establish a correct view of victory and defeat and carry forward “friendship, unity, the Olympic spirit of fairness.
Challenge
since its establishment, the battle for the survival and abandonment of the Youth Olympic Games has never stopped. Although its positive significance is obvious to all, there are still many challenges and deficiencies.
Yang, who once served as the chairman of the evaluation committee of the International Olympic Committee of the two winter Youth Olympic Games, felt that the original educational function of the Youth Olympic Games accounted for a large proportion, but with the development of the Youth Olympic Games, now the competitive elements are becoming more and more prominent. “Although this is inevitable for sports events, I think the challenge is quite big, but it is also the most important thing how to pass on the concept of Youth Olympic Games and the value of Olympic Games to athletes and more people. Now the outside world focuses more on the results of the Youth Olympic Games than on its educational significance.”
When interviewing the Youth Olympic Games, the reporter also found that many athletes were not enthusiastic about participating in cultural and educational activities with “achieving good results” as the main purpose of participating in the Youth Olympic Games.
In this regard, Li Lingwei said that he could not go into the misunderstanding of deliberately raising the function of culture and education. After all, competition is the essential attribute of sports competitions. However, how to balance the relationship between education and competition and promote the comprehensive and balanced development of athletes is indeed a major challenge facing the Youth Olympic Games.
During this year’s Youth Olympic Games, reporters participated in the attention day (FocusDay) activities of taekwondo, boxing and fencing. There were only 20 to 30 athletes participating in each activity, it makes the venue that can accommodate hundreds of people seem a bit deserted. Li Lingwei said frankly that some cultural and educational activities were not attractive enough, “it is not difficult for everyone from different cultures and backgrounds to recognize and accept them”.
Another challenge facing the Youth Olympic Games is the contradiction between maintaining a certain scale of events and controlling costs.
26, 28 and 31, there have been more and more events in the past three Summer Youth Olympic Games, and the number of participating athletes has been increasing. Different from the athletes who left after the Olympic Games, the athletes of the Youth Olympic Games must participate in the whole process, which undoubtedly increases the burden of the host city.
Yi Jiandong, a well-known sports scholar, said that due to the limited market development income of the Youth Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee now subsidizes the Youth Olympic Games with the money earned by the Olympic Games, but once the financial situation of the International Olympic Committee deteriorates in the future, the survival of the Youth Olympic Games will be threatened. When the International Olympic Committee spare no effort to reduce the cost of bidding and hosting the Olympic Games, it is necessary to re-examine whether the Youth Olympic Games are worth the money.
In the future
One of the 40 proposals of the Olympic 2020 agenda is to “examine the positioning of the Youth Olympic Games”. Li Lingwei believes that the International Olympic Committee’s positioning for the Youth Olympic Games is becoming clearer and clearer, which is to guide young people to establish a healthy and positive lifestyle. This kind of education is not only for the Youth Olympic Games athletes, but also for them to play a role model to influence more young people.
Yang Yang also said that how to encourage more young people to participate in sports, how to better play the educational function, and how to let more young people feel the value and significance of the Olympic movement are the root of the Youth Olympic Games. “In the whole world, there are too many choices for children, and video games will reduce the opportunities for outdoor sports. The supporting facilities in the city cannot keep up with it, and the sports space is not enough. In addition, academic pressure leads to an increase in children’s sports costs, which is a social problem. The Olympic Games or the Youth Olympic Games are just ways and methods, which should be adjusted with the needs of the times. To jump out of sports to do sports, jump out of the Olympics to watch the Olympics.”
“The Future Youth Olympic Games need to have a way to solve the current problems.” Yang Yang said.
In terms of enhancing the enthusiasm and desire of more people to participate in sports, the organizers of this youth Olympic Games have also made some attempts, such as adopting the methods of audience registration, free admission to watch competitions and Experiencing cultural and educational activities. Only 6 days after the start of the competition, a total of 600000 spectators entered the stadium and the bracelet was issued. During the Youth Olympic Games, the municipal government of Buenos Aires also organized more than 200,000 primary and middle school students to watch the competition on site.
Dolby said that after the Youth Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee will comprehensively and deeply examine all kinds of attempts in this year from the perspective of the future. “We use a lot of resources to examine all kinds of details, from the overall participation level to the timing and scoring system (for new projects), which is the main project and who runs it, we will examine every detail, it even includes the time when the injury stopped. We will analyze all attempts from head to toe.”
Although the International Olympic Committee has made continuous efforts to improve the Youth Olympic Games, some experts and scholars suggest that the Youth Olympic Games should be canceled directly.
Yi Jiandong believes that under the background that the global enthusiasm for bidding for the Olympic Games has dropped sharply, the Olympic movement needs to do subtraction.
In his view, cultivate teenagers’ enthusiasm for sports and carry out Olympic value education for them, it is enough to have the daily activities of many professional committees of the International Olympic Committee and cultural and educational activities during and around the Olympic Games, such as youth camps, torch relay, etc. The individual international competitions of various international individual organizations aiming at young people are also enough to achieve the purpose and effect of training reserve talents for the Olympic Games.
Yi Jiandong said that he fully understood the original intention of Roger’s founding of the Youth Olympic Games and invested various resources, which would naturally have some benefits. However, to do things, he should measure the cost paid and the enthusiasm and attitude of the participants. “Compared with the Olympic Games, the Youth Olympic Games are very poor in terms of competition level and attention, and there is no good marketing. Therefore, don’t push down just because people in the past have certain value in creating it.”
In fact, the establishment of the Youth Olympic Games is to solve the problems of over-commercialization of the Olympic Games and the proliferation of stimulants. It is an effort and exploration to revise the self-value of the Olympic movement. But is it too idealistic? Whether it can undertake the initial mission may be tested by the practice of several generations, and whether the Youth Olympic Games can obtain such time and space?