Recognition of Olympic effort has changed over years

"Sport has the power to change the world … Sport can create hope where there was only despair." 

– Nelson Mandela, 2000, Laureus World Sports Awards

I don't know if it could change the world, but it certainly changed me.

On Thursday, I watched an entire table tennis match for the first time, incidentally also my first Tokyo 2020 match. 

Shameful for me! I thought, that's our "national sport," plus there is the famous "ping-pong diplomacy."

Lunch came just as the game ended. Instead of the routine,  "Here is your food, please enjoy," the delivery guy looked unusually excited. "We won!" he said.

Then, my WeChat exploded with virtual cheers and shouts in more than half of the group chats and dozens of personal messages, including my editor.

"All talk is of the game in the canteen now," she said. "A guy on the nearby table had bad signal when watching it on his mobile just minutes ago, he almost went craaaaaaaaaaaazy."

Some were like me, watching a table tennis match in its entirety for the first time, or watching their first Tokyo Olympics match. 

I saw many debates about whether the Tokyo Games should be held. After all, the pandemic is not over and there is the Delta variant. Those supporting it often gave reasons like sports have the power to unite within society and among different societies, and that solidarity is important in a world heavily hit by a pandemic.

To be honest, it sounded empty, until I watched that table tennis women's singles semifinal between China's Sun Yingsha and Japan's Mima Ito (Sun swept Ito 4:0), found myself relentlessly searching for upcoming games, and discovered many friends who had never planned to watch any games doing the same thing.

That rush of adrenaline when watching athletes from my country fighting so hard, despite stress, exhaustion and injuries, to challenge themselves and for national pride is unexplainable and unstoppable for me. 

I think it's woven into the fabric of competitive sports, especially at an occasion like the Olympic Games.

And that adrenaline rush started with the table tennis semifinal between Sun and Ito, who had just won a gold medal with teammate Jun Mizutani in the mixed double, defeating China's Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen.

Xinhua

What a shock! That's probably what sent many Chinese to watch the women's single. It's never a headliner when China's ping-pong players win games, but certainly top news when one loses. 

I barely knew all the four names, but upon seeing the popped-out headline, I was checking who would be the next Chinese player up against Ito in the women's single, who are the Chinese players, what are their advantages and disadvantages.

Before I realized, I went straight from Chinese ping-pong 101 to mastering all players' nicknames and best strikes like a real fan.

So there came my first experience watching a game of China's "national sport" in its entirety – a bit over 20 minutes, and China's Sun defeated Ito in the semifinal.

It felt good! It has nothing to do with me practically – I don't get a salary increase, I don't get a bonus, no discount when I go to a restaurant, no cuts on my credit card bill – but I felt good!

National pride or patriotism is sometimes portrayed in such a negative way nowadays in some foreign media, puzzling me. It doesn't mean I hate other countries. What's wrong about feeling good about your own country every now and then?

"National pride" didn't always ring well with me, as I vaguely remember how China's "gymnastics prince" Li Ning chose to retire and started his own sportswear brand. He fell in the 1988 Seoul Olympics and returned to waves of disappointment and criticism, even letters with knives in it asking him to commit suicide. 

Then, a gold medal was like a booster and placebo for a country that only got its first Olympic gold medal four years earlier. Losing a highly anticipated gold medal was like a national shame. 

I didn't understand, but I witnessed the gradual change over the years.

TV presenters no longer sounded so harsh when athletes miss a step. Cameras no longer focused only on the gold medal winners. Netizens started sending comforting messages to those who fought and lost, in addition to cheers for the winners. They also started cheering for athletes from other countries, even when they defeated Chinese athletes, if it was a good game. Chinese athletes started showing more personalities. 

When 21-year-old Yang Qian won the first gold medal for China this time, it went trending, along with her "lucky" yellow duck hair clip, manicure and carrot hair band. Within hours, sales of these items rocketed on e-commerce sites, some sold out.

Her 23-year-old teammate Wang Luyao posted a selfie along with an apology for failing to qualify for the final in the women's 10-meter air rifle, drawing in haters who questioned the timing of posing for a selfie. 

Wang subsequently deleted the post, just before more netizens rallied for support, and hashtag "Wang Luyao is still Zhejiang Province's good girl" soon went trending with nearly half a billion views.

That women's ping-pong semifinal sent me on an Olympics watching spree and emotional roller-coaster that I can't control. The last one I watched was a women's volleyball match essential for China's team. 

They lost.

The team's coach Lang Ping, herself a member of the gold medal winning team decades ago, said in the after-game interview: "Of course everyone is sad that we lost such an important match, but they fought hard, so let's hold heads high up. It's not like you can only do that when winning, and weighed down when losing. It's the spirit of sport that matters. Chin up!"