China's elite athletes face high hurdles to escape state system

tauringhuang.

By Mure Dickie
Sunday, August 24, 2008
  
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The
injury that forced Liu Xiang out of the Beijing games means China's greatest athletics star will miss out on the commercial bonanza he would have enjoyed if he had retained his Olympic 110m hurdles title.

But it is not just Liu whose bottom line will suffer – his withdrawal is also a blow to the income of the state sports system that discovered and trained him.

Under government rules, the state national track and field association has full control of Liu's “commercial development”, with his multimillion-dollar sponsorship income divided 50 per cent to him, 15 per cent to coaches, 20 per cent to his local sports bureau and 15 per cent to the association itself.

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The four-way split highlights the dual role played by China's elite athletes as highly marketable sports celebrities and also state employees subject to levels of control and discipline unimaginable in western nations. Discussion of sports performance in China often centres on whether athletes have properly “repaid” the state – and those who come second often apologise for failing to do so. And in a telegram to Liu after he pulled out of his 110m hurdles heat this week, Xi Jinping, China's vice-president, told the 25-year-old athlete to “battle even harder” to win “yet greater glory for the motherland”.

While critics stress the sacrifices made by children selected for sports training – most of whom are eventually discarded – the general sense in China is that the system's recruits should be grateful. Indeed, for many athletes the system provides an escape from lives of rustic labour.

Even in minority sports that attract little commercial sponsorship, state teams provide salaries and bonuses that usually amount to a respectable income.

“Chinese athletes' training is provided by the state . . . so our final achievement should also belong to the state,” says Xu Haifeng, a pistol shooter who won China's first-ever Olympic gold medal at the Los Angeles games in 1984.

Mr Xu, now a coach, gave his medal to a museum. “Lots of people say, ‘You're so stupid – you could have auctioned that medal for millions of yuan',” he says. “But I reckon that a gold medal belongs to the nation.”

Not all athletes see things as so simple, however. For the biggest stars, China's embrace of capitalism and its fast growing consumer market has brought huge commercial opportunities they are eager to exploit.

Yet efforts by top athletes to wrest control away from the sports system have generally failed.

When diver Guo Jingjing started sealing her own advertising deals after the Athens games, for example, she was kicked out of the national team. Guo was allowed to return after issuing a public apology and on Sunday became the most prolific women's diving medallist in Olympic history.

But her former boyfriend and fellow star diver, Tian Liang, was never forgiven for employing his own agent and signing up with a Hong Kong entertainment group.

In taming wayward athletes, sports officials can generally rely on the help of the media. The commercially-oriented tabloid press has relatively wide freedom to report on the lives of sports and entertainment stars, but remains subject to censorship and rarely backs individuals in disputes with state bodies.

Nor does moving abroad guarantee commercial autonomy, since top stars' value to sponsors rests on domestic popularity and continued presence in national teams. Basketball player Wang Zhizhi, for example, paid a heavy price for trying to forge his own way in the NBA in the US.

Yao Ming, Wang's successor as China's top basketball player, has had to share a substantial part of his earnings with the Shanghai sports system as well as submitting to the often gruelling training schedule of the national team.

Nevertheless, officials say long-term sporting success depends on reducing the role of the state, a trend that should eventually give stars control of their own affairs.

In a commentary published by a Communist party newspaper last week, journalist Wang Tian said China could begin to allow athletes to take personal credit for their achievements.

“Gold medals will more and more become an individual matter,” Ms Wang wrote, “and athletes will more and more belong to themselves.”

tauringhuang.

When diver Guo Jingjing started sealing her own advertising deals after the Athens games, for example, she was kicked out of the national team. Guo was allowed to return after issuing a public apology and on Sunday became the most prolific women's diving medallist in Olympic history.

But her former boyfriend and fellow star diver, Tian Liang, was never forgiven for employing his own agent and signing up with a Hong Kong entertainment group.

In taming wayward athletes, sports officials can generally rely on the help of the media. The commercially-oriented tabloid press has relatively wide freedom to report on the lives of sports and entertainment stars, but remains subject to censorship and rarely backs individuals in disputes with state bodies.

tauringhuang.

Nor does moving abroad guarantee commercial autonomy, since top stars' value to sponsors rests on domestic popularity and continued presence in national teams. Basketball player Wang Zhizhi, for example, paid a heavy price for trying to forge his own way in the NBA in the US.

Yao Ming, Wang's successor as China's top basketball player, has had to share a substantial part of his earnings with the Shanghai sports system as well as submitting to the often gruelling training schedule of the national team.

Nevertheless, officials say long-term sporting success depends on reducing the role of the state, a trend that should eventually give stars control of their own affairs.

In a commentary published by a Communist party newspaper last week, journalist Wang Tian said China could begin to allow athletes to take personal credit for their achievements.

“Gold medals will more and more become an individual matter,” Ms Wang wrote, “and athletes will more and more belong to themselves.”