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aspiration to pursue unity, peace and harmony. Even in the tempestuous times
engendered by wars and conflicts, fair competition must be upheld; the game rules
are prerequisite to the birth of justice. Currently China enjoys rapid economic
development and Chinese people are more and more competition-conscious, which
is not only reflected in commerce, but also in other aspects. The sense of
competition has reached an all-time high.
Chinese tradition prizes harmony which should characterize the interpersonal
relationship. Laozi advocated competition against oneself, but not others. But in
today‘s world, competition attendant on the social progress and economic
development is inevitable and becomes increasingly intense at home and abroad. So
nowadays it is extremely important to properly handle the relationship between
competition and justice. Especially in the transitional period of the society, it is an
urgent task to put an end to the disharmony, injustice and illegal maneuvers. That is
to say the Olympics to be hosted by China are far more than international sports
contests in that the Olympic Games shall be a baptism of the Chinese spiritual
civilization. From the Olympics we can learn the essence of other nations and
combine it with our nation‘s advanced thoughts in an effort to build an orderly, just
and harmonious society and achieve national prosperity in the end.
China Reading Weekly: But we have also noticed that incidents about ―the
exhilarant‖ are frequent in the Olympic Games. Such occurrences go against the
ideal of the ancient sages and Coubertin in particular, and they even amount to the
distortion and blasphemy of ―the Olympic spirit‖. Is that the quagmire the Olympic
philosophy is bound to encounter today?
Zhao Dunhua: With the globalization being pushed ahead, the Olympic Games come
to encounter new challenges which affect the spreading and development of the
Olympic spirit, the core of the Olympics. And as the modern athletic competition is
more and more manipulated to serve political and commercial purposes, there have
emerged some disgraceful things.
As you just mentioned, the exhilarant incident is an instance of disgrace. As from the
1950s some nations took the exhilarant as ―a strategic weapon‖ in the peaceful
competition at the sports arena in a way to assert the superiority of their political
system. For many years the avid concern of the mass media and the immense
investment by the multi-national companies has boosted the commercialization of
the high-level athletic competition. Success at the grand international events means
shooting to fame at one stroke and bountiful revenues. Lured by the glory and the
material gains in prospect, some athletes chose to take the exhilarant despite its
harm to health. But taking the exhilarant transgresses the sports morality of fair
competition, stains the image of the sports in the public‘s eyes and undermines the
health of the exhilarant-taker himself. Such sort of scandal contravenes the tenets of
sports competition and awfully blasphemes the Olympic spirit.
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