A video of intense training for young Chinese divers went viral recently, sparking concerns over the rigorous training methods employed in China’s national sports system. The author of “The Red Gamble” unexpectedly revealed his own similar experience as a child athlete, drawing attention to the country’s sports system under the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule.
At the Paris Olympics on August 6th, 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongyan once again clinched the gold in the women’s 10-meter platform final.
Shortly after, social media in China circulated a video showing 6 to 7-year-old children rigorously practicing diving techniques. The high difficulty and intensity of the training, considered too extreme for children of that age, left many netizens sighing in disbelief.
Desmond Shum, the author of “The Red Gamble” and a former member of the Beijing Political Consultative Conference under the CCP, posted on social media X, claiming, “I was one of these trained children.”
“At the age of six, I was selected as a swimmer due to my physical structure. I went through the same training process as these children. The state (party-state) is not interested in our well-being. It is about exhausting individual athletes, and eventually, after hundreds or thousands of athletes are eliminated, one will stand out,” he said.
“So when you see Chinese athletes standing on the Olympic podium, please consider this,” he wrote. “Everything is for the glory of the country.”
Reports from mainland China stated that Quan Hongyan was discovered by a coach at the age of 7 and entered the diving team, eventually making it to the national team and being selected to participate in the Olympics.
According to Chen Huaming, Quan Hongyan’s foundational coach and a diving coach at the Guangdong Zhanjiang Sports School, “In Zhanjiang (their local area), only about 10% of athletes can be sent to the provincial team.”
These child swimmers, due to spending extended periods in the water, often have their hair turn yellow.
Quan Hongyan’s parents confessed that the intensity of the diving training was beyond their imagination, with the high-intensity diving training making them feel hundreds of times more tired than farm work.
Quan Hongyan, who won a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, stated, “I am not the talented girl you all describe. It’s all hard work, practicing over and over again, enduring hardships during the process. In these three years, there have been my own hardships, tears.”
Karishma Vaswani, a political columnist for Bloomberg in Asia, mentioned that the CCP has long been investing heavily to encourage athletes to compete and prevail over Western countries in the Olympics, showcasing the achievements of the Communist Party. This trend continues in the current Olympics, but faces a crucial difference: public questioning in China. Despite many facing grim economic prospects domestically, people question why Beijing spends so much on supporting sports events.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that 716 Chinese athletes would participate in the Paris Summer Olympics, marking a historical high in the number of participants.
Using the Olympics to promote the benefits of Communist Party rule can be traced back to the 1952 Helsinki Olympics when the Soviet Union participated and won medals. Mao Zedong subsequently ordered the selection of elite athletes for training to compete in the Olympics and demonstrate the CCP’s soft power on the international stage.
According to Vaswani, this is a model provided by socialist countries to defeat Western democratic countries on the global stage.
“This state-driven method of achieving international sporting success requires substantial funding. Winning medals comes with a hefty investment. China’s (CCP’s) sports budget this year exceeds 1 billion dollars,” Vaswani stated.
She added that in comparison, Australia, which also performs well in the Olympics, had only about a quarter of Beijing’s sports funding last year.
“American (Olympic) athletes do not receive government funding but rely on various forms such as private sponsorships, charity, broadcast revenues, and endorsements,” Vaswani elaborated.
However, the CCP’s medal strategy did not yield the expected results during the Paris Olympics. Some Chinese netizens expressed dissatisfaction on social media, questioning why taxpayers should foot the bill for athletes’ flights, accommodation, and travel benefits, and complaining that sports are detached from the people.
One Chinese netizen commented on Weibo, saying, “Oppose the national system, use the money for the people’s livelihood.”
“How much money has been spent on so many people? It would be better to allocate this money to the unemployed.”
“The whole society, whether economically or socially, is full of signals of depression and oppression… now everyone is struggling, who has the energy to care about the Olympics?”
The most widespread response from a netizen was, “I’m making lard, leave me alone.” Previously, mainland China revealed a widespread food safety issue involving oil tankers mixing inedible oil, enraging the public. Helpless, Chinese people opt for self-protection, seeking safe alternatives – using self-made lard instead of edible oil.
“Eating is not safe at all, so what’s the meaning of winning more gold medals? What does it represent? Does it represent the overall health level of the nation? Or does it represent the popularization of sports among the populace? Or can it help improve pressing issues such as medical care, education, employment that urgently need improvement?” a Chinese residing in the United States lamented.