The Winter Olympics-themed flower beds are completed in Dongdan and Xidan in Beijing on Jan. 18. Photo: CFP

The International Symposium for “Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics: Sports and the Future of China and the World” took place simultaneously in Beijing and online on Jan. 9.

Popularizing Olympic education

Popularizing Olympic education is a key part of promoting the Olympic spirit. The Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics has not only shifted the focus of the Olympic Movement from winning medals to enriching mass sports and leisure sports, but also increased the sports system’s transparency and accountability. It has also raised people’s awareness of Olympic education and the cultivation of Olympic values.

Holding the Beijing Winter Olympics is the best opportunity to strengthen Olympic education for the whole society, said Susan Brownell, a professor at the Anthropology department at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. In recent years, although Beijing Sport University and other units have been promoting Olympic values and carrying out Olympic education, ordinary people still need to deepen their understanding of Olympic values.

In accordance with the requirements of “forming an Olympic education model with Chinese characteristics” proposed in the “Olympic Education Plan for Primary and Secondary School Students for the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games,” institutes of Olympic studies have been established in several locations in China, and the results of this Olympic education work are about to show.

Regarding the best practices in carrying out research related to the Beijing Winter Olympics, Sun Daguang, former director of the Sports Culture Development Center at the General Administration of Sport of China, suggested that to understand, research, and analyze the Beijing Winter Olympics, it is necessary to link it with the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, and also to discuss it in the context of China’s reform and opening up.

“We should carry out Olympic culture popularization activities in combination with the reality of Chinese culture and social development, and incorporate Olympic education into daily teaching and life in a subtle way,” Sun suggested.

Community of shared future

The Beijing Winter Olympics, as another major landmark event in the history of the development of the Olympic Movement in China, will surely become an important platform for building a community of shared future for mankind.

Building a community of shared future for mankind is inseparable from international dialogue and exchanges, said Xue Wenting, a professor from the School of Journalism and Communication at Beijing Sport University.

Large-scale international sports events, represented by the Olympic Games, can provide an ideal communication platform for mankind, which is of irreplaceable value in promoting the harmonious integration of different civilizations, equal dialogue between different countries, and the friendship and solidarity of all mankind, Xue continued.

These are highly consistent with the concept of a community of shared future for mankind and provide practical opportunities for its construction, Xue said.

Huang Yaling, a professor from the Advanced Institute of Olympic Studies at Beijing Sport University, said that the concept of a community of shared future for mankind is people-oriented in terms of the development method and path selection for modernity worldwide, which is a development method that surpasses the “material-oriented” principle of capitalist modernity.

The ultimate goal of world development is the development of all human beings. The development of world modernity without “people” will lose its direction. Therefore, achieving sustainable development through a people-oriented approach is an important theme of the reform of the modern Olympics.

In the Olympic Agenda 2020, released in 2014, and the Olympic Agenda 2020+5, released in 2021, the International Olympic Committee centered the athletes’ experience at the core of the Olympics, while enhancing athletes’ principal status, which reflects the people-oriented concept of Olympic reform and coincides with the concept of a community of shared future for mankind, Huang said.

“Together for a Shared Future,” the motto of the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, is a vivid interpretation of building a community of shared future for mankind, and embodies the concept of “sharing” and “openness” in hosting the Olympics, said Qiao Fengjie, a professor from the Division of Sports Science and Physical Education at Tsinghua University. It is in line with the core values and vision of the Olympic Movement, as well as the goal of pursuing world solidarity, peace, and progress.

“It also meets the common demands of all countries in the world amid the current COVID-19 pandemic,” Qiao said.