You’ve likely read many articles on the extreme sport training in China, especially in the years leading up to the Beijing Olympics.
I’m generally slow to chime in. It’s unfair to impose all of my Western values on a developing nation.
But this article shocked even me:
… Chinese athletes, particularly women, tend to be much thinner than their Western counterparts. Guo Jingjing, a gold medalist in diving who weighs 108 pounds, pointed out as much rather ungraciously when she referred to competitor Blythe Hartley as “the fat Canadian.” The 5-foot-5 Hartley weighs 123 pounds.
Guo, 27, suffers from health problems related to diving and is said to have such bad eyesight she can barely see the diving board. It is a common hazard for Chinese divers, who are recruited as young as 6.
“Divers who start at an early age before the eye is fully developed have great chance for injuries,” said Li Fenglian, doctor for the Chinese national diving team. She published a study last year reporting that 26 of 184 divers on the team had retina damage.
Despite the validation provided by the Olympic medal count, China is probably heading in the direction of a more open system where the athletes have more freedom. Having tasted celebrity and the wealth it can bring, many athletes have balked at remaining in a system where they are treated like rank-and-file soldiers. …
Guo Jingjing is the most successful female diver in history.
What about our own Cheng Fei?
… Cheng’s road to Beijing began in central China, here in Hubei Province, a bleak industrial region where her father worked as a shipping clerk and her mother toiled in a tire factory.
She was born in 1988, an only child in a nation with a one-child policy. From the beginning, her parents say, she looked like a boy, so they treated her like one. Her father, a disciplinarian who had studied martial arts, pushed her from an early age, even pressing her to do calisthenics every morning before primary school classes began.
“I trained her like a military soldier,” said her father, Cheng Ligao, who now owns a shop in Huangshi. “She followed me step by step and I shouted to her, ‘One-two, one-two….”‘
Yao Juying, her first coach, recalled a remarkably disciplined and focused child.
“I cannot believe how hard-working she was at that young age,” Yao said. “I’ve been doing this for 24 years, and I’ve never found a second one like her.”
read more – Chinese gymnast endured childhood sacrifice – IHT
(via Gymnastics Crossing – Child Abuse or Champion-Building?)
Life is tough in China for athletes. But, likely, even more difficult for non-athletes.
Happily, their economy is improving rapidly. With disposable income and time, hopefully the Society will open up. Families will have more options for their children.
UPDATE: video interview with coach of 2004 and 2008 Olympic Champions, Valeri Liukin: how he got into gymnastics in Kazakhstan and why he moved away from his family to live and train with coach Edouard Iarov – Gymnastike
Gymnastics Coaching.com 