Crisis and Response: Chinese Sports Narrative under COVID-19 Pandemic

The sports narrative under the COVID-19 pandemic is not just to reflect the incidences related to sport and their social meanings; more importantly, it is to rethink the function of sport elements in social development, which may provide some strategies for the future transfomation of the sport.By adopting the methods of narratives and expert interview, the hot topics were discussed including the development of sport industry, the postpone of the Tokyo Olympic Games, the governance of sports orgnizations, the preperation for Tokyo Olympic Games, stayat-home fitness and exercise, online teaching for physical education and "physical education of zhongkao".These findings suggest:① with the persistent, structual and social impacts of the pandemic on sport industry, the discourse on sport, by means of the turning "crisis" into "oppotunities", had better rely on the supportive actions from the government to achieve the fusion of the varisous sport sectors on multi-levels. By strengthening the consumation impetus and the risk-prevention ability of the enterprises, the oppotunities for the post-pandemic sport industry development will be acquired to the largest extent. ② The postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games highlights the dilemma and crisis existed in the interior governance of IOC, bringing the reflections on the governance efficacy of Chinese sports events.And this may produce challenges for Chinese teams to prepare for Tokyo Olympic Games, thus a new training model of cluster industry may be formed from the traditional one. ③ The spatial overlapping and authority seepage has formed a special "disembeding" space for stay-athome physical fitness and the catalyst of the sport interaction in "home-school-community", which has caused the changes of physical education teaching approach, as well as the ways people participate in the community sport and mass sport, thus a high self-motivated driving pattern of "localization" had been formed.④ How the discourse on sport is expressed, switched and defended in different contexts under the pandemic will provide an opportunity for the transformation of sport discourse into cultural resources, and promote the interaction and integration of culture and sport, thus to deeply influence people's viewpoints on sport.