Ever since Wang Junxia set the current world records in the women's 10,000 and 3,000-metre races, she has been one of the world's best-known runners. But when she was in middle school, her teachers didn't know what to make of her. The school was in a small town near the northeastern port
city of Dalian and because there weren't many students, athletics classes were held coed. The skinny youngster from a working-class family ran with boys older than her, and she won. 'My teacher,' she says modestly, 'was very surprised'.
When Wang's school arranged for her to compete at one of China's more than 3,000 specialised sports schools, the bottom rungs in the State's decades-old sports machine, she won again, even though she had never received formal training. That result was enough to gain her a spot in the programme, and when she graduated three years later she was elevated to the national team and put under the tutelage of Ma Junren, a former prison guard and farmer.
Wang and her teammates - who became the infamous Ma's Army - turned the sports world on its head. In 1993 alone, they broke 14 world records and among the proteges, Wang stood out. She was only 20 years old when she clocked a blistering 29 minutes and 31 seconds in the 10,000 metres, 42 seconds faster than the previous 'invulnerable' record. At the end of China's seventh National Games, Wang had set four world records in three events over six days.
Wang's story, from her rise from poverty to her natural talent and success through sheer will, was once typical of China's national athletics.
The 3,200 national team members and the roughly 17,000 full-time athletes supported by China's provincial and city governments, Wang says, still train 'very hard'. But China's sports system is also becoming more professional and, according to Wang, 'more scientific', with growing emphasis on nutrition, health and even psychology.