China’s disposable athletes
The online edition of Time includes a neat little exposé on the harsh realities facing China’s athletes when they retire.
According to the China Sports Daily, nearly 80% of China’s 300,000 retired athletes are struggling with joblessness, injury or poverty. Many athletes suffer from sports injuries and health problems caused by their training.
The Time article follows the appalling legacy of female weightlifter Zou Chunlan. Recruited at an early age, Zou was required to take pills that her coach claimed were “nutrition boosters.” They made her grow a beard and develop a prominent Adam’s apple and a deep voice. She is now infertile and must shave every couple of days.
When Zou Chunlan left school to become a professional athlete, her recruiting coach assured the 13-year-old that the nation’s huge sports bureaucracy would look after her for the rest of her life. All she had to worry about was winning. For a decade, Zou followed his advice, winning the 48-kg national weightlifting title in 1990 when she was 19 years old and pocketing four other national championships. But when she retired in 1993, Zou discovered that the coach’s side of the bargain wasn’t going to be met. After three years of menial jobs in the women’s weightlifting team’s kitchen, she was asked to leave.
With her little education and total ignorance of the real world, Zou had little choice but to turn to physical labor. After stints carrying sacks on a construction site and selling lamb kebabs in the street, she ended up as a masseuse in a public bathhouse earning $60 a month. Her fate isn’t unusual. A weightlifting coach explained to the Beijing News that Zou wasn’t the only retired weightlifter struggling with the real world. “Zou’s national medals are worthless. There are world champions who end up jobless after retirement.”
It is shocking treatment in a country that places a great deal of importance on winning athletic competitions. Much like the Soviet Union before them, China sees athletic competitions as a means of strengthening nationalism and providing a measuring stick to other countries such as the United States. We are sure to see in the upcoming Beijing Olympics that little matters more than the total medal count. The athletes that have given their entire lives to building the image of a strong socialist nation, could soon find themselves in menial jobs after the games are over.
Read the complete China’s Disposable Athletes on the Time website.
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