China’s Sports System Delivers Party’s Glory, Individual Pain

Former national female weightlifting champion Zou Chunlan was forced to do menial labor for several years and then worked at a public bathhouse as a masseuse.
Zhang Shangwu, a gold medal-winning gymnast at the 2001 World University Games in Beijing was also left destitute after his athletic career abruptly ended. After an Achilles’ tendon injury in 2002, he retired from the sport in 2005 with a pension barely enough to cover his living costs.
Zhang was also forced to sell off two of his gold medals for a grand sum of less than $20, reported ABC News in 2011. In 2007, Zhang was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing laptops and cell phones at a Beijing sports school. After his release in April 2011, Zhang resorted to begging and performing stunts on the streets for money to care for his sickly grandfather.
Retired basketball player Huang Chengyi’s tragic fate has also aroused attention. Huang, who is 7 feet 1 inches tall and once challenged former Houston Rockets center Yao Ming in China’s national training camp, is now paralyzed. He lives in an abandoned hut on a construction site and is completely dependent on his trash collector mother, according to the Asia Health Care Blog.

The Party’s Interests

The Chinese regime has faced widespread criticism about its sports system for indoctrinating athletes with its single-minded pursuit of Olympic gold medals, while depriving athletes of their personal life and education and providing them no means of living after their retirement from sports.
Huang Jianxiang, one of China’s best known sports commentators, told NTD Television: “I oppose this warped gold medal production line, this system that deprives people of their basic rights. Only the gold medalists benefit; all the others are the cannon fodder of the system, worse off than the hundreds of millions of people who were deprived of their sporting rights.”

According to Epoch Times commentator Xia Xiaoqiang, the athletes exist for the system.
“Under this kind of cruel system, these talented athletes have practically enslaved themselves to the state-owned organization,” Xia wrote. “They must give thanks to the Party and the country.”
Chen Kai, a former national Chinese basketball team player told Sound of Hope Radio, “In China, sports are used to meet the needs of power. It is a tool to glorify the CCP. It is not the true choice of an individual athlete. Therefore, sports in China are distorted.”
Meanwhile, netizens on the Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo have started a movement called, “Even if you are not a gold medalist, you are still a hero,” urging everyone to treat athletes equally and to stop pressuring them to win gold medals.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/china-s-sports-system-delivers-party-s-glory-individual-pain-276521-page-2.html