OlymPicks: Athletes to Be Needled and Cupped at the 2022 Games?
OlymPicks is an ongoing blog series whereby we highlight news, gossip, and developments in the buildup to Beijing's 2022 Winter Olympics.
Remember when Michael Phelps’ cupping bruises raised eyebrows among viewers of the 2016 Olympics? Well, that won’t be the last you’ll hear of such elite athletes using traditional Chinese medicine. In fact, the Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Administration Bureau recently announced that they will build a “traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) experience center" for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
The center’s aim is to “provide medical services and spread TCM culture,” according to state media. Of course, the scaling circular glasses used for the cupping treatment favored star swimmer Phelps won’t be the only service offered at the center. It will also make acupuncture, massage and other treatments for injury and rehabilitation available.
"The Olympic Games is one of the most internationally influential events. TCM's unique efficacy in sports injury rehabilitation has drawn increasing worldwide attention," said Han Zirong, secretary-general of the 2022 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee.
And while TCM's prominence is growing on the world's stage thanks to the forthcoming center for Olympians, this is by no means the first mention of the discipline in international sports media. Indeed, Western reporters were writing about the benefits of acupuncture and cupping circa the 2008 Summer Olympics with one writer arguing: "Chinese medicine focuses on the athlete and the injury; in the West, treatment is usually more geared towards just the injury ... A traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis will include taking the athlete's history of past injuries into account as well as other health issues, sleeping and eating patterns, and the strength of various systems throughout his or her body." Another writer noted that "During the London Olympics in 2012, acupuncture was widely recognized in the Olympic community for its extremely beneficial influence" because "chronic injuries, as well as ligament and tendon strains/sprains not responding to other treatment, can be treated successfully with acupuncture."
So in that sense, the new “traditional Chinese medicine experience center" is the culmination of the discipline's slowly building popularity among Olympians in recent years. Regardless, making quintessentially Chinese traditions like acupuncture and cupping a key component to the 2022 Games is quite a way for the Middle Kingdom to leave its mark – a global sporting event with Chinese characteristics, if you will.
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