Cheering China

The Chinese are putting their home-court/field/country advantage to good use. The constant raucous support of their athletes during these Olympics is different from the support we often see at home. I've written before that the US has traveled well at these Games, providing audible support for athletes in several venues (The Regroup, August 9). But the Chinese people's interest in their athletes is a little different. They seem to live and die on the performances of their competitors, no matter what sport they are watching.

I can't imagine dozens of Americans glued to their TVs to watch shooting or weight lifting back home. But that's what I see here in offices, subway stations and restaurants. Of course we give ample attention to the bigger Olympic sports - swimming, track and field, gymnastics, and even basketball - but we tend to forget about many of the others. Not here. So much of the excitement that comes from sports seems, well, foreign, for the Chinese. At the softball game I went to last week, any ball hit in the air, whether it was a pop up to the pitcher or a can of corn to right field, was greeted with a smattering of "ohhs" from much of the crowd, as if they were watching fireworks ascend into the sky. And yesterday, when defending champion Liu Xiang had to pull out of the 110m hurdle event with an injury, citizens were moved to tears. I don't think many Americans felt their eyes water when Tyson Gay was injured a couple months ago.

I think these differences stem from the fact that we get to watch world-class athletes in multiple sports on an almost daily basis. Some Americans might find this rampant Chinese nationalism to be pompous or juvenile, and that is understandable. But maybe they are just deprived of some of the wonders of sports that we take for granted. Pompous and/or proud, the the Chinese are showering all of their athletes with support during these Olympics.