A Chinese Journey by Ron Pickering
Shortly after the Communists came to power in 1949, China was excluded from the world's single most important sporting event: the Olympic Games - that is, until this April, when the People's Republic were once again invited back into the Olympic movement. During her time of exclusion, what has happened to China's sport and physical culture? Recently sportswriter and commentator RON PICKERING went to find out. His travels carried him from Wuhan, where 6,000 young people take part in a mass swim of the Yangtze river, to Peking's Summer Palace, where an old librarian explains the philosophical subtleties of ' shadow boxing '. His journey ends in Thailand at the Asian Games, where he asks whether China's policy of ' friendship first, competition second' still holds good, or is this country now going to be as keen as anyone to win as many gold medals as she can? Film cameraman MIKE SPOONER Film editor HOWARD BILLlNGHAM Producer RICHARD TAYLOR