The road to Olympic glory can only be lined with gold for the Chinese

Last Modified: 08 Jul 2008
By: Lindsey Hilsum

Chinese sportsmen and women are told that in Beijing only gold medals will do.

One month to go and China's athletes are preparing for the games of their lives. They have to beat the Americans, anything else will mean humiliation.

The Chinese came second to the Americans in the Olympic medal table in Athens. That's not good enough.

"If you win bronze or silver, you are a loser."
Josef Capousek

Kicking and punching for China. Four hundred thousand Chinese children train in state sports schools, dreaming, or being taught to dream, of Olympic gold. The Fushan academy in Yantai has already gained glory.

Tang Gong Hong, who won gold in the women's weightlifting in Athens, trained here.

Weightlifting coach Zhang Jianmei says:

"The moment Tang Gong Hong won the gold medal our whole district, even the whole city, was overwhelmed with excitement. Her story was being told constantly not only by the coaches, but also by people from all walks of life. She was our inspiration."

Tang is too injured to compete in Beijing, but that hasn't deterred 12-year-old Sun Yining.

Weightlifting wouldn't be every little girls dream, but she says her parents, both truck drivers, told her she should become an athlete.

After two years training, she says she dreams of joining the national team:

"I don't know (why). I just want to be a champion. I see others win medals. I want the same. I just want to train very hard and become a champion too."

At Fushan they train two hours in the morning, three in the afternoon and extra at weekends.

Scouts scour villages plucking out little ones who might be good at gymnastics, or big ones for sports like weightlifting, there's a lot at stake.

Lindsey Hilsum's Beijing

International editor and Channel 4 News's first ever Beijing correspondent offers a personal view of her 'hometown'.
- Watch the video blog

It's personal, and it's political. If any of these kids goes on to become an Olympic gold medallist they'll become celebrities in China and have the chance to earn lots of money.

But it will also bring benefit to local officials who'll probably get a bonus and maybe even promotion within the communist party.

Canoeing is a target sport, because there are 16 golds going. China concentrates on sports with more classes, thus more medals.

Now, just weeks before the Olympics, Chinese officials have sacked their German canoeing coach Josef Capousek. They say his results were poor; he says their obsession with gold puts too much pressure on athletes.

"For China to win the gold it's political, very important. Everybody talks about gold in China. I mean, if you win bronze or silver, you are a loser."

He was horrified to learn that in his Chinese language contract, winning gold was a requirement not an aim. "In the Chinese version, in the contract, I must win gold. In the German contract, it's we try to win gold. Because you know, they must know, I never signature some contract saying I win gold."

Training methods were military, emphasising strength not skill, with team members excoriated for laziness if they ever rested.

Capousek adds:

"It was closed like military. For every breakfast, lunch or dinner, the team must stay like bloody army, stretch to left to right. One two, one two. I say; hey listen people, it's sport."

This year's medals are a special Chinese design with jade. In Athens, China won 32 golds, the US 35. In this new sporting cold war, the Chinese are determined to win more than the Americans on their home turf.

Table tennis is one of China's strongest sports. Back in the 1970s friendly matches between the US and China gave birth to the phrase 'ping pong diplomacy'.

Sport is always about politics and never more so than this year, when China is determined to assert its position as a coming superpower, not just by hosting the Olympics, but by winning.