An athelete trains at the Incheon Munhak Stadium, the venue of the National Sports Festival, on Oct. 4. The annual festival, which will take place from Oct. 18 to Oct. 24, is the biggest domestic sporting event with more than 20,000 atheletes taking part. But it has largely gone unnoticed by the public each year, much like Oct. 15 Sports Day, which was established in 1966 to promote everyday sports and passion for the Olympics. / Yonhap |
Korea's Sports Day loses relevance
By Do Je-hae
The month of October is filled with national commemorative days, including the Sports Day which falls on Oct. 15. Like every year, it is likely to pass by unnoticed.
For the government, it is a day for handing out medals to athletes and relevant experts who made an important contribution to sports that year. For the rest of the country, Sports Day is basically a non-event beyond elementary school and it has no place in the corporate calendar.
Why is Sports Day irrelevant to most of Korea? Before pondering on this question, perhaps one may consider why Sports Day is celebrated on Oct. 15. Most people have no idea what this date represents, and not even the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has been able to offer a clear explanation for the choice of date.
The purpose of Sports Day is to "increase the people's awareness of the importance of sports and support leisurely lifestyles." During the early years of its introduction in the 1970s, it had been mandatory for schools and public institutions to hold some sort of sporting event but this is no longer the case.
IOC President Jacques Rogge announced that Tokyo, the host of the 1964 Olympic Games, will host the 32 Olympiad in 2020 on Sept. 7. Japan established its sports day on 1966, two years after the 1964 games to honor its first experience as Olympic host. Inset: A torch bearer runs toward the |
Unlike some other countries that observe a national commemorative day for sports like Japan or India, Korea's Sports Day falls on a random day that celebrates no particular event or figure related to sports.
Japan's Health and Sports Day pays tribute to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and India's Sports Day on Aug. 27 marks the anniversary of the birth of its hockey legend Dhyan Chand. Until 2003, Japan observed Health and Sports Day on Oct. 10, the opening day of the 1964 summer games, and since then it has been held annually on the second Monday in October.
For Japan, the Health and Sports Day is not only a tangible example of its passion for sports and the Olympics, it is also one of the country's favorite holidays. Since it falls on a Monday, people can enjoy a three-day holiday, one of the reasons so many people look forward to Sports Day every year.
In celebration of this holiday, many Japanese schools, business and towns hold mini versions of the Olympics. Sports days are often a week-long event at Japanese schools. Called undokai in Japanese, preparation for the event typically begins on a Monday and continues until Saturday, with the undokai being held on the Sunday. All across the country, arts and sports facilities extend their business hours and provide discounts or free deals.
Gymnast Yang Hak-seon, a gold medalist at the 2012 London Olympics, competes in the vault event at the 44th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, on Oct. 6. He was among some 70 sports people who were honored during last year's Sports Day ceremony. This year's Sports Day ceremony will be held next week. / Yonhap |
Unlike Japan, Sports Day in Korea is not a national holiday. This prevents some of the sporting events and athletic events at schools from being a truly family event since it's just another work day for most parents.
Sports Day and the Olympics
According to the National Archive of Korea, Sports Day was first introduced in 1966 by virtue of a presidential decree during the Park Chung-hee administration. This is the same year that Japan introduced its own sports day, exactly two years after it successfully hosted the Tokyo games, to promote an active lifestyle and honor the country's first experience as an Olympic host. Japan would repeat the role on three other occasions — the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo; 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano; and 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Since 1973, Korea's Sports Day is supposed to double as a day of celebration of the Olympic movement instead of the official June 23 Olympic Day celebrated in other countries. But in reality, Sports Day has done little to celebrate to Olympic spirit. If anything Korea has curiously been indifferent to remembering its own Olympic glories of the historic 1988 summer games in Seoul.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the momentous occasion for the country, but there was little mention of it in the media. A low-key celebration on Sept. 17 — the opening day of the Seoul Olympics — was organized by the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation with the glaring absence of medalists, organizers and high-level government officials. Culture Minister Ryu Jin-ryong did not attend this event.
Given the profound impact the event had in shaping today's Korea, the lack of attention from the government toward honoring the Seoul Olympics is incomprehensible. The indifference toward Korea's own Olympic legacy is consistent with the lack of commitment toward sports demonstrated by the government.
During a report of the culture ministry's budget for 2014, sports was the only field that saw a decrease in state funding, while other areas such as tourism, arts, entertainment will receive more budgetary support.
For a country obsessed with becoming a "sports powerhouse," Korea doesn't have a big sports culture or a sizable sports industry yet.
Sports took up only 0.13 percent of the total state budget in 2008, and this percentage continued to declined, marking a low of 0.06 percent in 2012.
There is a way to make the Sports Day more relevant for Koreans. If Sports Day were to take place on the opening day of the Seoul Olympics, the day would have more meaning for people and help promote Olympic values particularly as Korea prepares for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
Some experts say that the reason for government's indifference toward Sports Day and sports as a whole is that it has yet to fully perceive the pivotal role of sports in people's welfare.
"Korea has made a certain level of achievement in elite sports. But we have a lot more to do to promote everyday sports," said Kim Hak-soo, a teacher at the Korea National Sport University. "Today's sports policy should be centered on promoting sports as core leisure activities for a healthy lifestyle, rather than elevating the nation's global status toward sports."
The Park Geun-hye administration announced a package of plans to promote sports in August, but there was no mention of raising awareness of Sports Day.
It announced that it will aim to get more people involved in sports and expand job opportunities in the field, but it was unclear how these tasks could be managed amidst the chronic budgetary limitations.