City Beat | Yes, politics and sport are intertwined, but we can admire athletes for their own sake

Two weeks ago, a reader sent me an email concluding that trying to take politics out of sports could be as unrealistic as asking someone born big to lose an impossible amount of weight.

Responding to my last column on what Hongkongers would associate with the visit of China’s Olympic medallists, the reader suggested that, sometimes, athletes deliberately try to make a political statement, and if they don’t, their governments or the media will.

This reader has a point which I won’t dispute. But sports is still not politics, regardless of the reality that the two are linked in many senses, especially in mainland China which follows a long-established “state-sponsored” system of sports.

That’s why the story of Lang Ping, the hero behind the Chinese women’s volleyball team and its golden victory in the Rio Games, provides some food for thought.

Lang, nicknamed “Iron Hammer” for her superb performance that won gold for China in the 1984 Olympics, became the first player-turned-coach to win another long-awaited top honour for the country in Rio. But had she not distanced herself from politics, she might not be who she is today.

Rather than follow in the footsteps of some of her peers who became national sports officials, she chose to study in the US in the 1990s, then made a living by coaching overseas, including a stint training the US team that defeated China in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. For that she was once regarded as a traitor by some of her compatriots.

But as the very personification of the Chinese team’s “never give up” spirit, she seized the opportunity to serve her country when offered the chance to be the chief coach for the national team for Rio. Patriotism was, of course, the driving force when she took up the offer.