The plight of a 28-year-old former world champion gymnast battling poverty, injury and unemployment has put the spotlight on the mainland's system of producing top athletes.
Zhang Shangwu, who won two gold medals in the rings and team events at the 2001 World University Games in Beijing, has lived by begging in the city's subway stations since his release in April from a four-year jail term for theft. Local media publicised his situation last week.
Zhang's sports experience, the reports say, reflect the fate of thousands of young people who throw themselves full-time into an arduous training programme from childhood, thinking of nothing else but winning a gold medal at the Olympics.
Born to a penniless family in Baoding, Hebei province, Zhang was sent to a local sports school to practise gymnastics at the age of five, starting a long, semi-military training regime. Seven years later he was selected for the national gymnastics team. In 2001, national team leaders told him to pass himself off as a university student so that he could attend the World University Games, he told Beijing News.
His sports career was halted after he broke his left Achilles tendon while training in January 2002. He failed to make selection for the Olympic team that went to Athens in 2004 and was downgraded to the Hebei provincial gymnastics team. Three years later he retired.
Zhang said at the provincial team he had disputes with his coach who ordered him to do difficult exercises and neglected his foot injury. Team officials also opposed his application to study academic subjects at a local sports school, he said.