{"id":1977,"date":"2026-04-24T19:24:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T19:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/?post_type=exhibit&#038;p=1977"},"modified":"2026-04-29T02:28:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T02:28:59","slug":"to-the-olympics","status":"publish","type":"exhibit","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/exhibits\/song-chin-foh\/return-to-homeland\/to-the-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"To the Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Liu Changchun\u2019s Olympic participation was tied to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and the refusal to allow Chinese athletes to compete under a puppet state. Liu could not travel to Los Angeles simply because he had been selected as an athlete. His journey required Zhang Xueliang\u2019s financial support, Hao Gengsheng\u2019s intervention at Northeastern University, and the coordination of Wang Zhengting and Zhang Boling through the China National Amateur Athletic Federation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Song\u2019s role extended beyond coaching. He helped Liu prepare during the difficult voyage to the United States, represented the Chinese delegation in encounters with Japanese reporters, and used fluent English at a youth gathering in Los Angeles to condemn Japan\u2019s aggression in China. This made him a mediator between athletic competition, international public opinion, and Chinese nationalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Song later participated in the 1936 Berlin Olympics as track and field team leader and women\u2019s swimming instructor, and in the 1948 London Olympics as basketball instructor for the Chinese delegation. A Beijing Sport University profile presents him as the only Chinese figure before 1949 to have participated in all three Republican era Olympic appearances, in 1932, 1936, and 1948. That claim is useful, but you should frame it carefully as a claim from a later institutional biography unless you confirm it through Olympic rosters or Chinese sports association records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liu Changchun\u2019s Olympic participation was tied to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and the refusal to allow Chinese athletes to compete under a puppet state. Liu could not travel to Los Angeles simply because he had been selected as an athlete. His journey required Zhang Xueliang\u2019s financial support, Hao Gengsheng\u2019s intervention at Northeastern University, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":236,"menu_order":2,"template":"","institution":[],"place":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibit\/1977"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibit"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/exhibit"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibit\/1977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2539,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibit\/1977\/revisions\/2539"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibit\/236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=1977"},{"taxonomy":"place","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colby-and-china-ea333\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/place?post=1977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}