Training too hard?
Updated on 06 August 2007
Is training children so they might be able to participate in the next but one Olympics dedication or child abuse?
This week China is marking the countdown to the Beijing Olympics which start next August. The country's athletes are already training hard.
Channel 4 News has learnt that at least one female marathon runner trains for more than 300 kilometres a week in the period before a big race. That's more than twice the normal distance for elite athletes.
Such is the fervour for sport sweeping the country, one eight year old is running from Hainan Island - China's southernmost province - through five provinces to the great Wall north of Beijing as an Olympic stunt - more than three and a half thousand kilometres.
Our China Correspondent Lindsey Hilsum first met Zhang Huimin at home in Hainan.
