Knowing China Through Sports

Towards Big Goals

However, despite all his enthusiasm, he had mixed feelings. “The members of my delegation asked me for help as a translator and I could barely help them, much less with the technical issues of television broadcasts.” Chinese is a language that requires a lot of time, its methodical manner of study is based on the repetition of characters to the point of exhaustion and in a teaching supported by memorization, which can become martyrdom for speakers of Romance languages. “I explained to my colleagues that two semesters were barely enough to master elementary communication in Chinese, but it was hard for them to believe me.”

After the Olympic Games, he continued studying at the university for another two years. “I am convinced that the will that I forged in my athlete days helped me a lot in those hours of endless boredom writing characters. It was similar to swimming in a pool for more than two hours, eight or 10 kilometers, seeing only one line black drawn in the background and the “T” on the walls, but aware that sacrifice was the only way – there are no shortcuts to the big goals.” Despite extensive effort, he does not consider his level of Chinese to be so good: “Sadly I can’t compare it with my knowledge of English or French, I admit that I have been a little lazy from time to time”.

Ramírez is the star presenter and commentator on CGTN.

After completing his language studies in Beijing, he took exams to enter the Spanish-language channel of Chinese television. “After that, I returned to Cuba and with the support of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, I returned to Beijing to work as a news editor.” Four years later, he began to present the space dedicated to sports, coinciding with the 2014 Brazil World Cup. “Since then, I have a fixed segment twice a day, in which we prioritize the performances of athletes and teams from China and Latin America.”

Although somewhat reluctant to talk about his successes in the channel, Ramírez recognizes that he has managed to diversify the sports menu of the news. “Before, we basically talked about football, tennis, diving, badminton, and table tennis, without giving the tournaments an immediate daily follow-up.” Currently, in addition to having won in frequency and immediacy, regularly reporting on Chinese basketball (the CBA) and the NBA, baseball, boxing fights or mixed martial arts have become more important, among other topics of interest.