True purpose of sports

The purpose of sports is to keep fit.

Proper sports activities promote metabolism, and give our body favorable stimulation and exercise, which make people stronger, more high-spirited and happier.

But modern people's anxiety for quick success and instant benefit makes sports deviate from the true purpose and even against the good nature of the sports itself.

Many people have excessive exercise. The excessive exercise may improve their performance and make them "faster, higher, and stronger", and win medals, but also may bring them serious injuries and illnesses.

Some athletes even continue their training and contests with their injuries and illnesses. That does harm to health, instead of keeping them fit, and is certainly against the original purpose of sports for keeping fit and happy.

People hold various kinds of international sports meetings, such as Olympic Games, in order to raise the level of sports of each country through fair competition and learning from each other, on the one hand, and more importantly, to promote mutual understanding, friendship and unity between the people of different races, countries, regions, and cultures, through the sports activities, on the other hand.

But some people like to link "win or loss" in international sports events with the honor of a country. The conception of "sports win honor for a country" makes some countries concentrate their limited resources to train just a few sports elites at the expense of popularization of sports among the common people. That goes against the original purpose of the international sports events.

As a matter of fact, the prestige of a country relies on its politics, economy, culture and diplomacy and so on, and the medals in international sports events really don't matter so much.

The main function of sports on the international stage is international exchanges, not the struggle for each country's honor.

Our country has obtained far more gold medals than other countries in this Beijing Olympic Games.

However, gold medals don't necessarily equal to people's health. We have a lot more to do to promote sports activities among common people to improve people's health.

Gold medals are not even an item of comprehensive national strength, either. We should be fully aware that we still have a lot to do to make our country more prosperous and stronger.

Former Chinese leader Mao Zedong's two quotations best summarize the right purpose of sports and international sports events: "Promote the sports activities to improve people's health" and "Friendship first, competition second".

Meng Haoguo, a Shanghai resident

via e-mail

Be proud, but not complacent

As the Chinese media still indulge in praising China's success of Olympic Games, there are also significant issues that should not be ignored. For example, how to restore normal life for the people in quake-hit areas?

Furthermore, China's development attracts world attention. But are you aware of costs of such progresses? If for generating an income of say $1, China incurs production and operating cost of $0.45 and environmental cost of $0.25 plus social cost of $0.20, then its performance is not that great or exceptional.

We are proud of China, but we should also soberly recognize that China's weaknesses exist at its level of creativity, efficiency and effectiveness.

Observer

on China Daily website

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(China Daily 08/28/2008 page9)