A Hundred Years of China's Olympic Journey

Author: Wang Xiaohua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: The Chinese National Sports Association decided in 1926 to hold the 4th National Games from late May to early June of that year. However, war always interferes with sports. The sound of gunfire from the Northern Expeditionary Army of the National Revolutionary Army and the smoke covering the Chinese land obscured this sporting spectacle. People shook their heads and said, "If only the outcome of sports could replace that of battlefields, there would be no war." The Northern Expeditionary Army set off from Guangdong, cutting down enemies and capturing flags along the way, and occupied the three towns of Wuhan in the season of cool winds. This great battle to unify the north and south ended only in June 1928, when the Northern Expeditionary Army reached Beijing and the Fengtian Warlord regime withdrew beyond the Great Wall. From then on, the Northern Expedition ended, and China entered the era of the Nanjing National Government led by Chiang Kai-shek.
Between 1929 and 1949, China held four more National Games. Among them, the 4th, 5th, and 6th Games were held in 1930, 1933, and 1935, respectively, before the War of Resistance, and the 7th Game was held in 1948 after the war. In 1929, the Chinese National Sports Association decided to hold the 4th National Games in October in Guangzhou, the birthplace of the Kuomintang. When the report reached Chiang Kai-shek, someone suggested that the National Government planned to hold the "West Lake Expo" in Hangzhou in 1930 and move the National Games to the same time, combining them for greater impact and cost savings. Chiang Kai-shek thought it made sense, so the long-delayed 4th National Games was finally grandly opened in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, on April 1, 1930.