China's status as a sporting superpower was achieved on theback of punishing state-led training in schools, but a softer approach hasenabled today's students to seek a life beyond the gym, they say. China'sSoviet-style sports system has been criticised in the past for its methods ingrooming children but sporting authorities in China have embarked on a periodof soul-searching in recent years, which has led to a more relaxed trainingenvironment for the country's next generation of sports stars.
Eight-year-old Yu Zhengyang is one of thousands ofyoungsters in China who is motivated by his own sporting dreams rather than thedemands of the state. He said the decision to leave his family home in northernChina to devote five hours a day to table tennis training at a school hundredsof miles away was an easy one. Explaining his reasons he said “I want to go tothe Olympics. I can play table tennis well so this is my dream. I can win thegold medal". "I believe in myself that I can play well. I came hereto practise more," adds the recently crowned champion of a major under-12stournament in China, with one eye on the 2020 Olympics. Yu's first year atShichahai was spent in a school dormitory. But he left the school grounds whenhis mother and father arrived in Beijing from Shaanxi last year.
"I like it more now, living with my parents," hesaid. "And at the weekends when I have finished my homework, I have timeto relax and watch television." China began to reassess its high-pressuretraining system after its rise to sporting superpower status was enshrined bythe 51 golds it won at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Shi Fenghua,vice-principal of Shichahai, which has produced ten Olympic Champions,including three from the London Games, said "Students here don't have todo the tough training that we focused on before". Central to this new style of coaching isgiving students time to relax and not pressuring them to win competitions, eight-year-oldYu's coach, Gu Yunfeng, said. Pressure, he said, was something that you took on to achieve goals asan athlete and not something exerted by anyone else.
After China's gold medal tally dropped to 38 at the LondonOlympics, chef de mission Liu Peng called the results "satisfactory"-- and praised China's non-medal-winning athletes for showing the Olympicvalues of fair play and sporting behaviour.
