With the closing of the Nagoya Asian Games, the attribution of the male MVP was even more sensational than the closing ceremony itself. Thai sprinter Wen Song, with 2 gold and 1 silver, was selected as the most valuable male athlete of this year; while Chinese swimmer “King of 7 Golds” Zhang Zhanshuo did not receive this award. As soon as the news came out, the words “dark box operation” were almost welded onto hot searches.
Let‘s take this word apart first. The Olympic Council of Asia‘s MVP selection mechanism is not mysterious: the 5-person judges vote separately, and the one with the most votes is elected, which is standard in black and white—considering the world records, Asian records, Asian Games records, and the number of gold medals this year created by the athletes. The judges were formed by the Olympic Council of Asia, not dominated by China; the same female MVP was also awarded to Yu Zidi from China. A selection hosted by an organization outside of China and with Chinese athletes simultaneously taking on the female MVP, “making a move against China” does not stand up logically. Zhang Zhanshuo‘s failure was more like the psychological gap caused by “7 gold losing to 2 gold,” which is translated into the three words “there‘s something fishy.”
There is no evidence pointing to a dark box operation. The real controversy, in fact, lies in the second question—should the MVP count gold medals, or look at individual breakthroughs?
Put the two of them on the scale, each has their own weight. Zhang Zhanshuo‘s seven golds are the pinnacle of dominance and stability: one person carrying multiple lines of the Chinese navy, his body mass is astonishing, and placed in any Asian Games would be phenomenal. But Wen Song‘s two golds, their weight is not in quantity, but in color—running 100 meters in 9.90 seconds, breaking the Asian Games record, 200 meters in 19.88 seconds, catching up with Xie Zhenye‘s Asian record. The 100 meters and 200 meters are the most dazzling crown events in track and field and even in the entire sports world. Yellow races and Southeast Asian athletes break the ceiling here, and the symbolic significance far exceeds a few gold medals in the pool. The three letters MVP are Most Valuable Person, and value is never equal to quantity.
I am inclined to think that Wen Song‘s election was not a problem. The Olympic Council of Asia wrote “record” and “gold medal” side by side in the criteria, implying that rather than the accumulation of medals, they wanted to celebrate that moment when “human limits were pushed one step further.” A person who nailed Asian speed at 9.90 seconds on the 100-meter track, its historical weight, indeed, might weigh more than the pile of seven gold medals.
But then again, the phrase “considering records and the number of gold medals” in the judging criteria is just so damn vague. How many percentages do records and gold medals account for? Is there a upper limit to the weight of breaking records? It‘s not said. It‘s precisely this excessively large discretionary space that makes the judges‘ choices “controversial” no matter how they choose. If the criteria were clear to “prioritizing world/Asia records, then gold medals,” the controversy wouldn‘t have been so big from the beginning.
On a deeper level, this debate is related to the poster scandal in the Chinese sports newspaper: We are too accustomed to measuring an athlete by the color and number of medals. Zhang Zhanshuo‘s seven gold medals certainly deserve the highest treatment, but an MVP for someone who rewrote Asian speed on a hundred-meter straight track is not necessarily necessary, much less necessarily a dark factor.
What do you think? Should the MVP count gold medals, or look at breakthroughs? Zhang Zhanshuo‘s 7 gold, does he deserve an MVP?