Wushu's small step towards Olympics
Mainland sports officials say the Chinese martial art of wushu has a long way to go before it can become an Olympic sport, despite getting approval in principle to hold a competition on the sidelines of the 2008 Games.
Wushu was last seen at the Olympics in 1936 when a small Chinese team performed during the Berlin Olympics.
International Wushu Federation (IWF) secretary-general Wang Xiaolin said wushu was known to many people around the world but had yet to become as popular as Japan's judo and Korea's taekwondo.
He said China would continue to push for wushu to become an Olympic sport and they had much to learn from Japan and South Korea in promoting the martial art to International Olympic Committee members and the world. Japan successfully pushed for judo's inclusion at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, while South Korea's taekwondo made it to the Olympics 12 years after the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Wang said wushu also lagged behind in terms of appeal and tournament administration. 'Not to mention the [limited] live coverage of wushu competitions on television,' he said.
IOC president Jacques Rogge told Chinese media during the 10th National Games last year the IOC had agreed in principle to allow the Beijing Organising Committee to hold a wushu tournament on the sidelines of the 2008 Games.
The one-off event is believed to be a trade-off with the hosts. The IOC has tried to streamline the summer Olympics and freeze the number of sports but Chinese sporting authorities say the agreement is a hard-fought win for the Chinese martial art.
Wang said wushu was part of China's 5,000 years of civilisation and its presence at the Olympics was in line with the spirit of a 'Humanity Olympics', one of the three themes for 2008.
Only two of the 28 competition sports at the Olympics originated, and was modernised, in the east and Wang maintained the inclusion of wushu in 2008 would help promote cultural exchanges between East and West.
Chinese sports officials began pushing for wushu's inclusion as a competition sport in the Olympics in the late 1990s and lodged a formal application with the IOC in December 2001. But the IOC postponed a decision at an assembly in Prague in July 2003.
'For the time being, what we can do is make sure there are fair and clean wushu competitions at all levels,' Wang said.
The IWF passed a new set of rules for wushu tournaments at the Eighth World Wushu Championship in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi last year and Wang said the rules were more scientific and objective. The IWF's 105 member countries will hold another championship in Beijing late next year in rehearsal for 2008.
There are more than 130 forms of wushu, including the bare handed and weapons variations but fewer than a dozen boast international competitions.
Wang dismissed concerns that a majority of the wushu forms would be marginalised by focus on a few styles. 'The competitions are sure to attract more fans and benefit the sport as a whole,' he said.
