People's Talk: The Olympic spirit, born in competition but higher than competition

The much-anticipated Beijing Winter Olympics is in full swing. Olympic athletes push the limits, challenge themselves, and bring visual enjoyment to the audience. Whether they win or lose, athletes show the beauty of sportsmanship with their wonderful performances.

What is the Olympic Spirit? It is born of competition, but it is higher than competition. It is faster, higher, stronger, and it is also a community with a shared future for mankind that spans countries and regions, and it is the unyielding force of love and peace in the face of difficulties. It is the Olympic spirit that well interprets the significance of sports for mankind, making the Olympic Games the world's highest honor event and attracting the attention of the world.

All along, any competitive sport is a display of strength and beauty, a carrier of perseverance and beauty in human character, some are sonorous and powerful, some are ethereal and agile, some are never given up when exhausted, and some are tenacious in the limit. The self-challenge spirit of "faster, higher, stronger" has become the belief of every athlete.

In the past Olympic games, there have always been athletes who constantly challenge the limits of human beings. With extraordinary courage, they face the consequences of challenging failure and try one seemingly impossible difficulty after another. We were thrilled by the fledgling young general Gu Ailing in the freestyle ski jump final, challenging the 1620 that had never been completed on snow; we were amazed that in just 4 days of the start of the race, the Olympic athletes broke the Olympic record four times in the "ice ribbon". Their success has once again refreshed the heights of humanity and shown infinite possibilities.

But challenges mean risks, they mean failures, and the pursuit of that ultimate moment doesn't always bring sweetness. Japanese ice figure skater Yu Yu, as a two-time Winter Olympic champion, full of honors and idols worshipped by many people, took Axel's highest difficulty in figure skating around as his ultimate goal and launched one challenge after another. For the audience, the challenge of The Feather String is more meaningful than the championship, whether it is successful or not, all mankind will applaud it, and at the same time, they will be full of expectations for the next challenge to surpass themselves.

Breakthrough is the indomitable character carved into the bones of human beings, even if the game is won or lost, but the Olympic spirit is never more than winning and losing. As the new Olympic motto says, it is a sporting feast that makes people "more united". Foreign coaches helped the Chinese legion to achieve good results in the Olympic games, and the "overseas exchange" of Chinese coaches has become the norm. Sport is a two-way interaction, whether it is a coach or an athlete, even if they are opponents, they are partners in the track of victory over themselves.

Although these great athletes come from different countries and regions, they all share the same identity – practitioners of the Olympic spirit. They have used themselves to interpret the most simple sports spirit represented by competitive sports, which is the essence of the Olympic spirit, which is far more precious than the gold medal.

Why is the Olympic spirit so deeply rooted in the hearts of the people?

That's because "see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax on our wings".

Column Editor-in-Chief: Gu Wanquan Zhang Wu Text Editor: Song Hui

Source: Author: People's Daily News