On the evening of July 26, the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games was held in the rain, which is a quadrennial event for sports people. When various athletes have stepped onto the world stage, writing glory and dreams with sweat and passion, Go, an ancient and profound arena of wisdom, is quietly waiting outside the arena, which is particularly lonely.
Many chess fans should have such a question in their minds, why is there no Go event in the Olympic Games? In fact, it is not only the Go event that has not been selected for the Olympics, but the entire intellectual sport has not been favored by the Olympics.
The modern Olympic Games are primarily focused on physical exercise, with the goal of "faster, higher, stronger" to stimulate the body's potential. However, chess competitions are intellectual competitions and do not conform to the positioning of the Olympic Games. Historically, chess was used as a performance sport at the 1924 Paris Olympics, but it was not an official sport. Since then, intellectual sports (including chess) have rarely made it to the Olympics.
In addition, the comprehension threshold of intellectual projects is high, and the competition time is long, which reduces the viewing and entertainment of the competition. At the same time, the doping test for mind sports is not as strict and universal as other traditional sports, which is one of the reasons why it is difficult for it to become an Olympic sport.
The Go program itself lacks qualifications as a sports event. The reasons are roughly as follows:
Lack of ornamentality. As an intellectual sport, Go has a relatively high entry threshold and is relatively weak to spectator. For viewers who don't know much about Go, long games seem boring and difficult to attract widespread attention.
The rules are not uniform. At present, there are three main types of rules for Go competitions in the world - Chinese rules (number method), Japanese and Korean rules (number method) and Ying rules (point system). These rules differ in determining the winner or loser, and it is difficult to form a unified competition standard internationally.
Popularity is relatively low. Although Go has a deep cultural base and a broad mass base in East Asian countries, its popularity on a global scale is still limited.
So, is it possible to hold an Olympic event that is a mental sport?
The answer is that it has been held, but it can't be done.
According to online information, the International Mind Sports Federation had this idea more than ten years ago:
The International Mind Sports Federation was established in April 2005, in order to enrich the Olympic family, the then president of France Joss · Damiani put forward the initial idea of holding the Mind Olympics, the International Olympic Committee expressed support for this idea, hoping to hold world-class mind sports events first, to make up for the lack of international comprehensive events in mind sports. To this end, an international event officially proposed and actively operated in 2006 at the initiative of the International Intelligence Union will be held in the host city of the Olympic Games in the same year as the Olympic Games, and will be held every four years. The Organizing Committee of the First World Mind Games was inaugurated on December 13, 2007 in Beijing, China.
The first World Mind Games was hosted by the International Mind Sports Federation and undertaken by the Chess and Card Sports Management Center of the General Administration of Sports of China, and was held in Beijing from October 3 to 18, 2008, with a period of 15 days and 35 gold medals. There are 5 major events and 35 minor items in bridge, chess, Go, checkers and chess.
Song Ronghui won the championship in the women's individual Go competition of the first World Smart Games
But by the second edition of the World Smart Games in Lille, France, in 2012, the event did not go well and the scale was greatly reduced. There is no longer a professional group for the Go event, and the two main teams of China and Korea have not sent teams to participate. Since then, the World Mind Games have not been held, and the reason is that most of the intellectual events lack commercialization and mass base, do not have sufficient sponsorship funds, and it is difficult to expect returns from them.
For the Go event, the first World Smart Games left a valuable legacy, that is, the "Smart Games Rules", which can not only achieve "6.5 mesh", but also be implemented with several rules, balancing the differences between Chinese rules and Japanese and Korean rules.
According to President Hua Yigang, the rules of the Go project of the Smart Games will be formulated with the reasonable part of the Chinese Go rules as the core, but some parts have also been appropriately modified, taking into account the rules of Japan and South Korea as much as possible, hoping to achieve the purpose of allowing players from other countries, especially Japan and South Korea, to adapt. The revision of the rules can also be said to be an important first step for the unification of Go rules, hoping to open a channel for the final unification of rules.
——"Hua Yigang: Taking the Smart Games as an Opportunity to Promote the Unification of Go Rules."
General Administration of Sports of China, 2008-03-20
Sadly, this precious legacy was only used once in a human race and has not been seen since. Although the "unified rules of Go" have been reintroduced in recent years, it is still difficult to predict to what extent they will be implemented.
If the two paths of the Multi-sport Games and the Mind Games do not work, can the Go community hold an Olympiad of its own?
The 10th Ying's Cup semi-final won Ke Jie
The Go tournament that seems to have the closest touch to the Olympics is the Yingshi Cup World Professional Go Championship. The only thing that touches the side is the holding cycle, which is held every four years.
The current World Championships are all commercial cup competitions, and there are often irreconcilable disputes over the rules of the competition, the qualifications of the representatives, the allocation of quotas, etc., and the final decision is often determined by the will of the host country and the sponsor. However, there is no truly authoritative international organization for the Go program.
Unifying the rules of Go, popularizing the game and culture of Go to the world, unifying the rating of players, and organizing international Go tournaments, etc., all require a binding international organization to achieve these goals.
The influence of the International Go Federation needs to be strengthened