The fulfillment of the dream of hosting the Olympic Games has aroused
unprecedented Olympic passion among the Chinese. In the past few days, the
Olympics has become a grand festival for the Chinese people.
"We come from afar to gather in Beijing to fulfill our dream." In the
ongoing Olympic Games, more than 12,000 athletes from 204 countries and regions
all over the world are contesting in the Beijing Olympic Games and over 100
foreign political dignitaries attended the opening ceremony. According to the
reports of foreign news agencies, there has never been a single incumbent U.S.
or French president to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games out of
his own country. However President George W. Bush brought along his family
members of three generations to Beijing to watch the Olympic opening ceremony.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy at first wavered if he would come or not,
eventually he did come.
To come to Beijing is not for feasting the eyes on the gaiety of the
opening ceremony alone. Pierre de Coubertin, father of modern Olympic Games,
once said that for Olympic sports, "participation is more important than
winning". The British TV station said when it relayed the Beijing Olympics that
as the Games was being held in a country with a population of 1.3 billion, it
has already inspired more than 100 million people in that country to take up
physical exercise. To take part in physical exercise has increasingly becomes a
spontaneous action of the people in this "earth village".
We come from afar to gather in Beijing to fulfill our dream. To China, this
dream is gradually transforming into a genuine public interest for physical
fitness and health. Today physical exercise is becoming a part of the life for
many Chinese. The Olympic spirit of "faster, higher and stronger" is becoming
the choice and pursuit of more and more Chinese people. In a word, China is now
rising as a sporting power based on mass participation.
By Ou Chunliang
(Aug 19, PLA
Daily)
Editor: Dong Zhaohui
