The first horse race learned that Xia Yang, chairman of the Beijing Sunshine Times Polo Club, known as China's "first polo person", was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment by the Tongzhou District People's Court of Beijing Municipality in the first instance for committing the crime of usurpation of office. Xia Haifeng, former general manager of the State-owned Enterprise Beijing Bei'ao Group, who was jointly in charge of the assessment work, was also sentenced to four years in prison for accepting bribes and dereliction of duty by personnel of the state-owned company.
In February 2021, after the first instance judgment of the Tongzhou District Court, both Xia Haifeng and Xia Yang appealed. Xia Haifeng's defense lawyer, Tian Wenhe, said he received a ruling from the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate Court rejecting the appeal last week, and that both Xia Yang and Xia Haifeng's appeals had been dismissed.
How did the horse lover who once regarded "polo back to China, polo to prosper the horse industry, polo back to the Olympics" as the goal of struggle, how did he fall into the abyss of crime?
Xia Yang, a multi-habitat horseman
Who is Xia Yang? Architect, equine industry investor, horse sculptor, polo player, founder of modern polo in China. The number of his identities makes the first acquaintances go from surprise to doubt to amazement!
In 1990, after graduating from Xiayang University, who studied architecture, he was assigned to the Huanqiu Design Institute directly under the Ministry of Chemical Industry to engage in architectural design. In 1996, he went to sea, and in the same year, he learned to ride a horse in the National Equestrian Training Team and officially entered the horse pen. Speaking of the reason for the first contact with horses, he weighed more than 210 pounds at the time to learn to ride a horse for the purpose of weight loss, and as a result, he successfully lost 9 pounds after only two months of riding, and also exercised. After experiencing the benefits of equestrian sports, he fell in love with horses.
As a contemporary horse sculptor, he is good at realistic horse sculpture, especially the transformation of two-dimensional ancient Chinese paintings into three-dimensional three-dimensional sculptures. His sculptures are collected by foreign heads of state such as the Sheikh of Dubai, the former President of Argentina, and the former Prime Minister of France.
The picture is from the Sunshine Times Polo Weibo
In order to revitalize China's horse industry and let the horses have a better way out to play the greatest value, since 1998, Xia Yang has invested in the horse industry. With the theme of horses, he has created a series of horse cultural tourism activities and marketing activities from the aspects of tourism, sports and culture.
And invested a lot of energy and money to breed and train horse racing, personally invited professional horse trainers from Guangzhou horse racing, recruited the best riders from all over the country and asked full-time managers to be responsible for project management, creating a professional horse management team. He successfully bred three national speed champion horses and represented Sinopec in the 9th and 10th National Games. Just as he was playing in the speed racing circle, a chance Xia Yang came into contact with polo, which seemed to him to be more interesting than polo compared to speed racing!
With the "Chinese Polo Dream"
Polo has become popular internationally. But in China, not enough people know about polo, and even fewer people participate in polo than in other sports.
In 2004, Xia Yang established Sunshine Times Polo Sports Company, the predecessor of which was Beijing Chen Xiaofeng Equestrian Co., Ltd., which switched from speed horse racing to polo. It is also the first polo club in China with international standard furniture. At that time, Xia Yang put forward the slogan of "polo returns to his hometown, polo returns to the Olympic Games, polo rejuvenates the horse industry", and was also appointed as the first executive director of the Polo Committee of the Chinese Equestrian Association.
In order to promote polo, he also developed a "go out, please come in" plan. Go to Argentina, Britain, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and other more than 20 countries to learn polo techniques, and invite international polo players to China to participate in polo competitions.
In 2005, the first official national polo tournament was successfully held under his auspices. In 2006, he invited the Australian and Singaporean polo teams to hold the first international polo invitational tournament in China, which was a complete success, and the domestic and international equestrian community gave high praise, and the Chinese Equestrian Association praised the competition as a "milestone in the development of Chinese polo".
Infographic of the 2006 International Polo Tournament
Between 2005 and 2008, an International Tournament of Polo was held every year. In 2009, the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau officially set polo as a competition and created the first government-sponsored international polo event in China, the Beijing International Polo Open. In this process, it not only attracted many international high-level polo players to participate in the domestic competition, but also let the Chinese audience understand the sport of polo. Under the unremitting efforts of polo enthusiasts such as Xia Yang, polo has gradually become known to people, and the development of modern polo in China has begun to dawn!
A slip of the foot, a departure from the track of the dream
In the face of the aura of applause and glory and a large amount of capital, can we have the heart of a child and realize our original ideals without forgetting our original intentions? This is a test of human nature! Polo made Xia Yang, but it seems that he was disoriented by the dazzling light brought by polo...
In 2012, Beijing Qiji Times Tourism Development Co., Ltd. announced that it would invest in the construction of a 2,000-acre horse-themed industrial park in Yanqing, Beijing. This industrial park integrates sports, tourism, culture, commerce and trade, and education, and is an international cultural and tourism combined industrial base.
It is reported that the project was determined by Beijing Bei'ao Group and Yanqing County People's Government through consultation, and the China International Polo Center Project Company was jointly funded by Beijing Bei'ao Group and Sunshine Times Company, with Xia Haifeng, former general manager of Bei'ao Group, as the deputy leader of the leading group and leader of the preparatory group of the project preparatory group, and Xia Yang as the deputy leader of the preparatory group. It is also clear that the relevant land circulation will be realized as soon as possible in April and May 2021, xiayang personally as the demolished person, and Xiayang will be demolished compensation as the source of increase in the joint venture company.
To this end, Xia Yang personally signed a cooperation agreement with Bei'ao Group Company and Sunshine Times Company, which stipulates that the specific affairs of the joint venture company include obtaining the right to use the land for the project and compensating, of which after the establishment of the joint venture company, the appraisal company jointly recognized by Beijing Beiao Group and Sunshine Times Company will evaluate the 238 mu of land contract management rights held by Xia Yang and pay compensation.
Beijing Sunshine Times Polo Club, pictured from the Internet
The result is the problem with assessing compensation payments. According to the evidence from all parties, the Tongzhou District People's Court of Beijing Municipality held that Xia Yang took advantage of his position to put forward a tendentious opinion when selecting an appraisal agency, requiring the appraisal company to assess the relevant property in accordance with the false specifications and data provided and modified by it, and applying for compensation from the company according to the price consultation report obtained from the above false specifications and data, resulting in the company paying more than 10 million yuan in compensation. The use of deceptive means to illegally occupy the company's property for oneself, and the amount is huge, has constituted the crime of embezzlement of office, which should be punished according to law. In the end, he was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment and confiscated property of 200,000 yuan. It was also ordered to return the illegal gains and return them to Beijing Qiji Times Tourism Development Co., Ltd.
It is understood that before the execution of the judgment, Xia Yang had been in pre-custody since December 6, 2019.
In 2018, Xia Yang said in an interview with a media outlet that he hoped that snow polo could become a sport for the 2022 Winter Olympics. "Polo has been an official sport at five Summer Olympic Games. The 2022 Winter Olympics will be held in China, and Yanqing, the seat of my club, is also one of the venues for the Olympic Games. I want to include snow polo in the Winter Olympics, even if it's a performance event. Allowing polo to return to the Olympics will undoubtedly play a great role in the revitalization of polo. ”
But it is a pity that snow polo was not included in the 2022 Winter Olympics after all, and xia Yang, as the founder of contemporary Chinese polo, will eventually pay a heavy price for his mistakes, hoping that the development of Chinese polo will not be affected by the Xia Yang incident and slow down the speed of running. At the moment when China's horse industry is booming, I hope that the majority of horse industry practitioners will always maintain their original intentions, take the dream as a horse, and live up to Shaohua!