Who was the first person in our country to receive an invitation to the Olympic Games?

China is an ancient country with thousands of years of civilization. When the West is hosting the modern Olympic Games worldwide, what is China doing? In 1896, China was at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and the Olympic invitation sent to the Qing court is still a mystery.

Regarding the relationship between China and the first Olympic Games, there is a popular joke that is quite interesting. Legend has it that China sent a delegation to the Greek Olympic Games, with Li Hongzhang as its leader. The athletes included an eagle flyer, five colorful magicians on the bridge, and a martial arts troupe member. As a result, during the 100-meter run, the hawk suddenly threw the braid on his head over the finish line and won the championship in one fell swoop. Five jugglers made a basketball disappear without a trace, leaving opponents on the field inexplicable. Dizzy, unable to find direction, unable to find the basketball, he finally miraculously became a basketball gold medalist. The Peking Opera Wusheng performed a "little flipper" to beat the crowd and won the first place in the high jump. When receiving the award, since there was no national anthem in the Qing Dynasty, Peking Opera gongs and drums were used instead. The dramatic music played in the arena for more than 2 hours... Of course, these are official and unofficial histories and can only be played in private. However, it can also be seen that people hope that China will participate in the first Olympic Games. The homophonic pronunciation of the phrase "Olympia - I can compete...I can compete" expresses the heroic feelings in the hearts of many Chinese people. We hope that China will really participate in the first Olympic Games and win back many trophies. Did China participate in the first modern Olympic Games held in Athens, Greece? Carols were sung, fireworks bloomed, and thousands of peace doves spread their wings in all directions. Players from 11 European countries, the United States, and Australia crowded into the oval sports ground decorated with white marble reliefs. This is April 6, 1896, Athens, Greece, the opening ceremony of the first Olympic Games. People found that there was no representative of any Asian country here, not a single Asian with yellow skin and black hair. Has the International Olympic Committee forgotten the distant East? Did China, that is, the Qing government at the time, receive an invitation letter from Greece to the first Olympic Games? Did Cixi, who dominated the Qing court at the time, send a sports delegation to Athens? If you receive the letter, have you sent a delegation of athletes to participate? To this day, these are still a small sphinx mystery in China's journey to the Olympics. On June 16, 1894, the International Sports Congress was held in Paris. On June 23, the International Olympic Committee was established. According to the "A Brief History of Chinese Athletics" written by Ruan Weicun: "In the 21st year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1895), Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement and the International Olympic Committee (who served as the Secretary-General of the 1st International Olympic Committee) sent a letter Li Hongzhang, the Qing government, persuaded my country to participate in the first Olympic Games... The Athens Olympics Preparatory Committee also forwarded invitations through the embassies of various countries on August 16, 1895. "At that time, China already had a consulate in France, which shows that my country had been invited to the first Olympic Games. There is a level of credibility associated with participating. However, the Qing government at that time was in the midst of internal and external troubles and did not know what the Olympics and track and field were, so they ignored them. This is one explanation. However, the statement that "Li Hongzhang doesn't know what track and field is" is also questionable. As early as the 1860s, Li Hongzhang advocated the "Westernization Movement". In the curriculum of the Beiyang Naval Academy, which he founded in 1881, he taught students football, boxing, gymnastics, hurdles, high jump, long jump, swimming and other events. Therefore, it is understandable to say that in the 1890s, the Chinese government and the public did not know about the Olympics, but it would be a bit exaggerated to say that they did not know what track and field was.

However, this invitation letter has not been found in the current Chinese museum. Why? Around the end of Guangxu, when the Qing government was on the verge of falling apart, the eunuchs in charge saw that the space in the cabinet treasury was limited, so they placed all documents outdoors. If they encountered paper, they would dispose of it as waste - they would use it to make paper; if they encountered books or scrolls, they would throw them back into the treasury. Later, someone stopped the eunuchs from this irresponsible behavior in time, counted all the remaining documents, and filled more than 800 sacks. This is the famous "800 sacks incident" in the history of Chinese archives. Perhaps, the invitation letter from that year had been killed and sent to the paper mill by the eunuchs.

But if the invitation could survive the "800 Sacks Incident", it might have been doomed when the Boxers wreaked havoc in the capital around 1900. At that time, all the government offices of the Qing Dynasty near the Forbidden City had been occupied by the Boxers as military camps. The documents, official documents, and paper items in each government office were all used by the Boxers for cooking. At that time, the invitation letter might have been stored in the Prime Minister's Yamen in charge of diplomatic affairs. I don't know which Boxer "èmin" was in a hurry to eat and used the invitation letter as firewood. In the Athens Olympics Report published in 1896 and collected by the International Olympic School in Greece, no clear information was found about which countries were invited. Since the invitation has not yet appeared, the mystery of the Sphinx remains unsolved.

Another view is that it is doubtful that China was invited to participate in the 1896 Olympic Games.

Coubertin, the "Father of the Olympics", was born into a French aristocratic family. In the 19th century, many of his ideas were influenced by "Eurocentrism" and mixed with a sense of racial superiority. In Coubertin's mind, the world at that time was divided into three parts: continental Europe, Great Britain and North America.

At the opening ceremony of the first Olympic Games in 1896, Prince Constantine, the chairman of the organizing committee and Crown Prince of Greece, expressed in his speech "our desire to unite civilized people more closely." These civilized people come from 13 countries: Greece, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.

If you are still interested in this matter, here is another detail: There was a Frenchman named Shi Alain, who served as the French Minister to China from 1894 to 1896. He once wrote The book "Essay to China" mainly records his experience as a minister in China. The events recorded in the book basically happened between 1893 and 1897. From a procedural point of view, the invitation letter for the Olympic Games at that time should be handed over to Li Hongzhang from Shi Alan. However, in "The Embassy of China", Shi Alan did not mention this matter at all, "even in the whole book