In the 2008 Beijing Games, China acquired 51 pieces of gold medals, #1 in the standings, and amassed 100 of all medals awarded, second to the U.S. only.  It was a remarkable performance compared to the first time China ever attended the Olympics 76 years ago.

In 1932, backward, poverty-stricken, superficially unified China "dispatched" a 100M sprinter, Liu Changchun (劉長春), only to the Los Angeles Olympic Games.  Liu, a patriotic young athlete from northeastern China, refused to represent the puppet Manchuria State founded by Japan in 1931 and fled to Beijing for his dream of running for China. At that moment, no one, not even the Nationalist government, could be willing and able to assist Liu except Gen. Chang Syue-liang(張學良), who sponsored him with 8,000 Yuan(大洋) and sent him on a liner to Los Angeles. 

After a long journey of over a month in the sea, lacking practice and gaining some weight, Liu finally managed to carry the national flag(the one still representing us now) and entered the arena by himself only, but could not even win a heat. Reputedly, an American girl attendant in the arena named Sophie deeply admired his bravery and made a solemn promise to him: Someday, when China hosts the Olympics, they will meet again.  According to a report, despite being in her nineties, she kept her word and went to Beijing, but Liu had long gone.

China barely formed a team to participate in her second game, the prewar Nazi Berlin Game in 1936, and the third, postwar London Game in 1948. Yet, China gained no medals at all.  In the 1948 Game, Chinese athletes were still caricatured in British newspapers as stereotyped as Sickmen of the Far East.

PS: The story of The One Man Alone of Chinese First Olympics was adapted into the film一個人的奧林匹克, of course, produced by Mainland China. But the film was somehow banned in Taiwan.

September, 2008