Various competitions of the Beijing Olympic Games are now in full swing, we Chinese are so thrilled at the gold medal won by the Chinese women's gymnastic team, and feel proud by the indomitable fighting spirit put up by the Chinese men's basketball team who dared to take up the challenge against strong adversaries. The Olympic charm has far surpassed success and failure in competition.

　　It is the ideal and object of struggle of athletes to win medals or even gold medals at the Olympics. However, the charm of competitive sport lay in its unpredictability. On the competition fields, "everything is possible."

　　As an old Chinese saying goes, "Don't judge a person by his success or failure in the world." Of course, we must compete for gold medals, but we must not judge everything by gold medals alone. It is true that winners deserve our respect, yet those who put up a brave fight and showed a strong fighting spirit in competition although they knew they had no chance of winning also deserve our respect. Xiao Tian, deputy head of the Chinese Sports Delegation, was quoted as saying: "Every participant is a hero no matter he/she wins the championship or not. "In the Olympic history, many athletes went all out to participate in competition although they knew that they had no chance of winning. We may forget the names of some gold medallists, but why we can remember those who failed in competition for a long time. Why? That is because they carried forward the Olympic spirit with their action.

　　A survey shows that 69.6% of Chinese held that gold medal was not the most important thing, the most important thing was for the athletes to display their spirit of self-confidence, self-improvement and self-respect in competition. With popularization of the Olympic concept, improvement of social tolerance and enhancement of citizens' awareness, we have now started to cast away "gold medal worship", and no longer simply impose "national righteousness" upon athletes or associate "national rejuvenation" with gold medals.

　　When asked what if both Liu Xiang and Dayron Robles unexpectedly fail in 110-metre hurdles? Cabrera, a press officer of the Cuban Sports Delegation answered simply but profoundly: "Even if they both fail, there is always a winner, that is sports." Yes, we must never forget the purpose of the Olympics and the essence of sports.

　　By He Minghong

　　(Aug 14, PLA Daily)                                             Editor: Dong Zhaohui