by sportswriters Ji Jiadong, Chen Chen and Zhang Zewei
DAKAR, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The drums never quite stopped. On the blue mats at the Dakar Expo Center, young martial artists from around the world took turns performing under the lights. Fists snapped, feet whipped through the air, broadswords flashed, straight swords swept overhead and staffs whistled as they spun, before each routine ended in a still, precise pose.
Wushu made its debut as a medal sport at an Olympic event from Nov. 1 to 3, with 47 athletes from 46 countries and regions competing in four events.
China's 15-year-old Lin Yilei claimed the first gold in the men's changquan combined after topping both the changquan and gunshu, or staff, routines. Egypt's Sondos Sonbol won the women's changquan combined with a score of 18.660. Poon Hao Ran of Hong Kong, China, claimed the men's taijiquan combined title, while Singapore's Ng Zhe Nin took the women's crown.
DRUMS, CHEERS AND A FULL HOUSE
The opening belonged to Lai Xiaoxiao. At 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 1, the wushu Athlete Role Model struck a sabar drum, a traditional Senegalese hand drum, signaling the official start of the sport's first Olympic competition.
Sitting in the stands, Zhang Yuping, secretary general of the International Wushu Federation (IWUF), watched with emotion.
"We have come a very long way, and finally we have reached the Youth Olympic Games," Zhang said. "I'm no longer an athlete, but in that moment I wanted to rush onto the mats and perform a routine myself."
Asian martial arts such as taekwondo, karate and judo have already appeared on the Olympic stage. Unlike these combat sports, in which two opponents face each other, wushu's routines demand mastery of movement and technique. For its practitioners, the toughest opponent is often oneself.
That philosophy is reflected in even the smallest gestures. Before and after each routine, athletes raise a closed fist covered by an open palm, wushu's traditional fist-and-palm salute. At a Games whose program still leans heavily on sports originating in Europe and North America, the gesture offers a quiet expression of a different sporting philosophy.
The two disciplines were chosen with an eye to attracting the widest possible field. Changquan, or "long fist," is fast and athletic, featuring long stances and high jumps, while taijiquan is slow and continuous, with movements measured by breath rather than speed. Both are now practiced widely enough to attract competitors from across the world.
Sonbol's gold did not come easily. Drawn to perform last, she watched each of her rivals deliver a strong routine before stepping onto the mat.
The narrow margins reflected the competition's growing depth. Lin Xiaomei, the event's chief referee, said: "The margins are small, and that is exactly what we want to see. Wushu is no longer just an Asian sport."
On the opening day, the loudest roar in the hall was reserved for Woreye Ndiaye. As the 16-year-old Senegalese athlete walked out for her taijishan routine, the crowd rose to its feet.
"To represent my country on an Olympic stage is an enormous honor," Ndiaye said afterward. "I was not nervous at all. I was simply proud."
The sport also captivated newcomers. Federica, an Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) staff member covering wushu for the first time, followed every movement from the sidelines. During a demonstration after the finals, she was moved to tears.
"This is absolutely wonderful," she said, wiping her eyes.
On Nov. 2, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Kirsty Coventry visited the venue. Before the Games, she had expressed her eagerness to watch wushu, describing it as a sport important to China and many other countries.
Among those in the front row for the finals the following day were Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, IOC Honorary President for Life Thomas Bach, IOC member Michelle Yeoh and former NBA star Pau Gasol.
"You can see it's a very tight competition, I'm happy to see it's an official sport at the Youth Olympic Games," Bach said. "You can see the athletes come from different continents. For a long time, wushu was concentrated mainly in China."
Yeoh, the Malaysian-born actress, had been equally eager to witness the occasion.
"Watching it today gave me great feelings and emotions," she said. "It is not only Asians who practice this sport, but it's also definitely multiracial."
A LONG ROAD TO THE YOUTH OLYMPICS
Wushu's journey toward the Olympic stage began more than three decades ago.
In 1990, just days before the closing ceremony of the Beijing Asian Games, the IWUF was founded with 30 member associations. The following year, Beijing hosted the first World Wushu Championships, presenting the sport to an international audience as a standardized, judged competition rather than merely a cultural tradition.
Zhang remembers Dec. 20, 2001, when the IWUF submitted a proposal to the IOC seeking wushu's inclusion in the program of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
"I remember people always asking me 'What is wushu?' at that time," she said.
The answer came in the form of the Beijing 2008 Wushu Tournament, held alongside the Olympics with the IOC's approval. Although it was not an official medal event, the tournament introduced a global audience to the competitive sport behind the kung fu films.
In 2014, the Nanjing 2014 Wushu Tournament was staged alongside the Youth Olympic Games, using demonstrations and interactive activities to showcase the sport's appeal to an international audience.
Although wushu was not an official medal sport on either occasion, Zhang took pride in the fact that two successive IOC presidents, Jacques Rogge and Bach, presented awards at the 2008 and 2014 events. In Nanjing, Bach even presented awards specifically for the wushu competition.
On Jan. 8, 2020, the IOC Executive Board, meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, approved wushu's inclusion as an official medal sport at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games.
However, securing a place on the Olympic program was only the beginning. In the years that followed, the IWUF continued refining its competition system and organizing training courses, helping spread wushu to more communities across five continents.
The federation now has 164 member associations, with increasingly refined competition rules and systems and a growing pool of international talent.
"The closer we got to Dakar, the more difficult things seemed to become. It was like running a 400-meter race: the final stretch is the hardest," Zhang said.
When Iran's Arash Pahali became the first athlete to step onto the mat in the men's changquan all-around preliminary round on Nov. 1, standing tall and offering the judges the traditional fist-and-palm salute, the modern Olympic movement and the ancient Chinese martial art finally came together.
HARMONY CONNECTS FIVE CONTINENTS
Wushu's successful Olympic debut was built on decades of effort by generations of practitioners who carried the sport across borders and oceans.
In the 1990s, Gao Jiamin took her taijiquan skills to the United States, where she established a wushu center and has since helped guide American athletes onto the international stage.
Around the same time, Zhuo Haojun arrived in Germany. Now sports director of the European Wushu Federation, he has spent nearly three decades training students ranging in age from four to over 80. Among those he has mentored is his daughter, Zhuo Xuanlin, who won bronze in the taijiquan all-around at Dakar 2026.
The sport's international expansion has not been a one-way journey. In China, the Huo Yuanjia School in Tianjin has hosted training camps for foreign teams over the past two years, helping athletes from countries with less-developed wushu programs prepare for the Youth Olympic Games.
For many, wushu has also provided a way to connect with Chinese culture. As young people across five continents take up the sport in their home countries and regions, China has become more than a distant country to those drawn to its martial arts traditions.
Some practitioners with Chinese ancestry have also found a deeper connection to their heritage through the sport.
"Wushu was a way for me to learn more about my heritage," said 17-year-old Miranda Wei of Canada, who founded a student-led initiative supporting Indigenous communities and also works to introduce wushu to others.
On her first visit to Africa around 2000, Zhang Yuping watched children practicing on bare earth without a coach to guide them. What impressed her most was their enthusiasm and eagerness to learn wushu.
At the opening-day press conference in Dakar, Cherif Mustapha, IWUF vice president and president of the African Wushu Federation, said the sport had become part of Africa's sporting landscape.
He said African countries had spent years training coaches and referees, organizing competitions and supporting their national federations, working to ensure that no country was left behind.
"African athletes are no longer just taking part in competitions. They are ready to stand on the podium," he said. "The future of wushu begins today, and it begins in the hands of Africa." ■
