(1.School of Physical Education,Soochow University,Suzhou 215021,China;2.School of Physical Education,Jiangxi Normal University,Nanchang 330022,China) Abstract: There are up to 46 interpretations on the nationwide competitive sports system, mainly in terms of institu-tion, system and mechanism, and too many interpretations have resulted in different understandings about the na-tionwide system due to their failure to clearly distinguish the meanings of institution, system and mechanism. The authors analyzed the meanings of sports institution, sports system and sports mechanism, as well as their differences and connections. On such a basis, the authors put forward such opinions as that the nationwide system will be de-veloped “from an efficiency pursuing system to a people oriented system” and that “basing its primary investment source on government investment will become an important disadvantage of the nationwide system”. Ways to im-plement the “people oriented” ideology throughout the development of the nationwide system mainly include the followings: 1) to satisfy the need of the vast majority of people for basic public sports services; 2) to comprehen-sively develop athletes’ makings; 3) to assure athletes’ rights; 4) to focus on the sustainable development of athletes’ competitive skills. Funds for the development of the nationwide system come from government investment, which introduces social investment, the benefit expectations of social investment are assured by institutions, then the pro-fessionalization of sports competition events is promoted, ultimately a national sports system is formed. Key words: sport institution;sport system;sport mechanism;nationwide system |