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Laura Zhou

Like many of China’s current crop of talented athletes, who are looking forward to competing at this summer’s Rio Olympics, Li Gang once had dreams of gold-medal glory, too.
Today the overweight Li, 44, who was originally from Tieling, in northeastern China’s Liaoning province, looks anything but the outstanding teenage judo prospect he once was.
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He was still a child when he was snapped up to join the Soviet-style state-run sports training system, which looks to find the champions of the future,
Li was never a champion, and never found fame or riches. He is poor – earning only 1,300 yuan (HK$1,500) a month from selling barbecued meats on the side of the street to support himself and his son, 23, in the provincial capital, Shenyang, The Beijing News reported.
Yet he was once a training partner to many of China’s best judo stars in the 1980s and 1990s, including Zhuang Xiaoyan, who won the women’s heavyweight judo gold medal at the 1992 Games in Barcelona.

Li’s sad story sheds light on the downside of the state-driven sporting system, which signs up talented athletes – sometimes as young as four – and removes them from their normal school so that they can be given special daily sports training.
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Yet the system, fully back by the government, ends up with only very few making the grade and – in later years –able to continue working as sports coaches and government officials.
Li’s mother told the newspaper she regretted sending him to join the provincial sports team after excelling in a provincial judo competition at the age of 14 in 1985.
His outstanding talent caught the eye of officials on the provincial team, who promised him a job at a state-owned company in the future – a decent offer at that time.
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Over the next five years he spent up to 10 hours a day training, but realised very quickly that he would never make the medal podium himself. Instead he was asked to train alongside the nation’s best so they could win the medals.
Li helped to train five of China’s top judo fighters, including Zhuang. But by the time she won her gold medal, Li – who had been forced to stay overweight so that he could pose a challenge to even the biggest judo training partner – had already ended his time on the team by then.
Suffering injuries, including severe hip pains, he turned his back on judo in 1990, and has barely told anyone about his past life, including his son.
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His “reward” proved to be a job at a state-owned food company. But after he was laid off, Li found that his poor academic education limited his chances of finding work. His efforts to run a flower shop failed, and also struggled to carry out his duties as a security guard, the report said.
China’s state-run sports system has ensured that the nation has won many Olympic medals, but it has also proved controversial, with many critics calling for reforms to the system so that there is greater flexibility and freedom for young athletes.
One of the mainland’s most successful sports stars to strike out on her own is Li Na, the Chinese former professional tennis player, who quit both the national team and the state-run sports system in 2008.
She hired her own agent as well as world-class coach and later became China’s first grand slam singles champion - winning the French Open in 2011 and later the 2014 Australian Open – before retiring through injury in 2014.


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Li Gang joined the state-run sports training programme as a teenager in 1985, but is now struggling to make a living. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Zhuang Xiaoyan olympic judo gold medal winner Barcelona Olympics 1992. SCMP Pictures (UNDATED HANDOUT)

epa04285423 Na Li of China returns to Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic during their third round match of the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, in London, Britain, 27 June 2014. EPA/TATYANA ZENKOVICH

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