Five Ancient Chinese Sports Worthy of the Olympics

There are games, and then there are sports. For a game to be a sport, there ought to be a certain degree of athleticism, a touch of daring, a dash of intestinal fortitude. The Olympics seems to be losing that distinction. Shooting, for instance, requires no more physical virtue than steady hands and a good eye. As to daring and fortitude, it’s not like any of the contestants are shooting at each other.

Then there are events like badminton. Sure, it’s zippy, but an ancient Greek boxer would surely arch a bloody eyebrow at the way Lin Dan pumps his wiry arm over each point like he’s just slain a dragon with a sword, not a shuttlecock with an oversized fly swatter.

The larger point is that many sports your ancestors played resembled current Olympic sports, only with more physicality and courage. Read on for some heroic games the ancient Chinese used to play. Or you can go back to the death-defying ping pong finals.

Daur Field Hockey

The Daur people are descendants of the rowdy Khitan nomads who founded the Liao Dynasty in the tenth century. Like fellow ex-banes of China the Mongols, Daurs excel at riding, shooting and wrestling. They also play bei kuo, a version offield hockey.

Using meter-long oak sticks and a ball made of apricot root, the Daurs never bothered with shooting goals. The object is to smack the apricot-root ball over the other team’s boundary line, 50 meters apart.

For the Daur, any festival day is an excuse for an extended game of bei kuo. Young and old alike are encouraged to take part, provided they understand the risks. The preferred method of playing bei kuo is at night, with the ball dipped in oil and set aflame. Bei kuo is still popular among the Daur, who continue to play without pads or asbestos vests.

Deer Lifting

Violent times breed strong men. Thus it’s little surprise that half a millennium known only as the Warring States period (770 -221 BC) gave rise to two forms of strength contest called qiao guan and ju ding.

Qiao guan involved lifting massive iron door bars. Spurning practicality for bravado, a contestant would lift the bar one-handed at one end, rather than in the middle. By the Tang Dynasty, bar-hoisting wasn’t just for hefty court warriors. Instead, it was actually part of cadet examinations.

The ‘ding‘ in ju ding refers to gigantic cooking vessels, lifted by their ringed handles. During the wild and wooly State of Qin days, a renowned strongman named Wuhuo reportedly hoisted a 500 kilo vessel, without benefit of chalk or “sports medicine”. Contest organizers in the Han Dynasty (206 BC -AD 220) upped the ante, adding deer lifting and uprooting trees to the vessel lift. Just imagine the cute factor (and cut factor) added to modern weightlifting if today’s strength athletes consented to snatching deer.

Polo

Most likely introduced by way of Persia, polo was hugely popular during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Then as now, it was a sport for the blue-blooded. Virtually every emperor during the Tang prided himself on his polo skills. Many high-ranking officials maintained polo fields in their gardens. The game was also employed to train cavalry troops.

A dangerous game demanding stamina and preternatural coordination, polo fully deserves to be made an Olympic sport, even if today none dare play without helmets as the refined Tang scholars did. Those who maintain that polo is too expensive for the average athlete can tell it to the sailing crews at Qingdao.

Marathon Plus

Running long distances for no good reason has been popular in China since the times of legend, when Kuafu decided catching the sun was a matter of fast footwork. He drank the Yellow River dry in the attempt, dying shortly thereafter but setting a precedent for pointless physical exertion.

The marathons held during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) were more pragmatic than Kuafu’s doomed attempt. They were a way for generals to determine the fitness of their troops. It was a sturdy soldier indeed who could even finish the course, which was over 90 kilometers across rough country, enough to give even a Kenyan pause. Unlike today’s Olympics, the winner got a silver disc rather than gold, and everyone got some nice silk to take home.

Wild Swingers

Dang qiuqian, which means “to have a swing”, originated among northern Chinese minority groups, but was popularized by Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD) scholar Kangxi, who decided it was just the thing to honor ancestors with during the Qingming (Tomb-Sweeping Day) and Duanwu (Dragon Boat) festivals. Contestants would pose and twirl while swinging on ropes, the higher off the ground the better. Snatching high placed ribbons added to the skill necessary, as did the total absence of nets or soft landings below.

By the Song Dynasty (960-1279), professional acrobats were veering over water from swings installed on decks of separate boats. Somersaults before catching the other swing were common, and other neck-risking maneuvers. This may sound more fit for the circus than the Olympics, but if bouncing up and down on a trampoline counts as a sport, swinging should at least get a hearing before the IOC.

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