Why are the Chinese so bad at team sports?
Even with a population of 1.4B people, china is not ranked highly on any team sports
Athletes from China are usually good at solo sports. But, they struggle at team sports.
For example, China is great at Olympic sports like gymnastics, weightlifting, and diving. But, it doesn't do great when it comes to games like basketball, soccer, or baseball.
The Chinese Soccer Team failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2022, extending its absence to 20 years.
But other Asian countries like South Korea and Japan qualified, ranking at
24th and 28th in the world at that time
In 2023, the Chinese basketball team was knocked out of the FIBA Basketball World Cup. They lost three games and won only one match against Angola
As a result, they missed qualifying for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
This disappointed many Chinese fans since they again have no men's squad to root for
Apart from soccer and basketball, China struggles with other team sports like baseball.
This is the final moment of the 2023 World Baseball Classic for China against Korea. Korea beat China 22 to 2.
In the end, Japan won their third title. They won after beating the defending champion United States 3–2 in the championship game.
Some of the other team sports China struggle with include like rugby, cricket, and hockey.
Even with a population of 1.4B, China does not perform well when it comes to the most popular team sports.
I believe that China fails to compete due to a culture focused on education, a lack of infrastructure, and a lack of passion and pride for these given sports.
Basically, athletes in China lack incentives to pursue sports careers, despite a huge pool of people to pick from and worldclass athletes.
To be great at a sport, there has to be tradition and pride. This cannot created overnight.
This requires tremendous sacrifice at a national level and individual level most of these athletes are not going to make it.
Instead, the truth is China does not take team sports seriously like we do in the west. There is no althetic scholarships for student athletes nor are there hundreds of development teams and organizations helping these kids grow.
Instead, China mostly relies on the old model of scouting children who have nothing else going for themselves and feed them to a system that is built to chew you out.
Unlike solo sports that require repetition and the require genetics. There is no effective roadmap for finding the next Messi in China.
And to do so requires a national obsession for a sport. It also requires individual sacrifice and the right culture and system for kids to grow.
And to be honest, I would much rather see thousands of engineers being created in China versus 1 talented soccer, baseball, or basketball player.
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