China methodically sifted for gold

BEIJING -- Hurdler Liu Xiang's painful withdrawal and a ho-hum performance by basketball star Yao Ming were low points for China at the Beijing Olympics.

They hardly mattered.

Such disappointments were inconsequential against the hosts' all-time best count of 100 medals -- 51 gold -- an amount that sprawled across the Olympic program into sports where China hadn't before distinguished itself. Only the United States had more medals with 110, and its 36 golds were a distant second to China's tally.

China won gold medals in 16 of 28 Olympic disciplines, up from 14 four years ago in Athens and 10 at the 2000 Sydney Games.

These gains were the result of China's eight-year-old program targeting overlooked sports -- known as "Project 119" for the number of unexploited medals up for grabs. The program delivered, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding, copious foreign expertise, home-field advantage and a desire to establish China as a dominant sporting power for years to come.

"Even in events where gold wasn't won, we've raised our level enormously," said Liu Peng, the head of China's government sports administration. "State and popular support, economic development and social stability have all been huge factors."

Among the most eye-catching breakthroughs were fencer Zhong Man's gold medal in the men's individual saber, Zhang Juanjuan's individual women's archery gold and a silver medal for the women's field hockey team. Sailing, rowing, beach volleyball and trampoline also offered new medals, with the groundwork laid for greater success at the 2012 Games in London.

"It's all cumulative, the result of a lot of hard work and competition," said one of the new stars, Li Qiang, after finishing third in his heat in the men's 500-meter canoe single. "It's hard to name a single reason for the improvement. There are a lot of factors involved."

Including the home-field advantage.

"These Olympic Games, it's so nice, but not for European people," Hungarian kayaker Attila Sandor Vajda said after his race, referring to the cheering crowds that accompanied China's competitors throughout the games.

One key has been a willingness to seek out expertise from outside, whether by sending teams abroad or by hiring foreign coaches, much as China welcomed in droves of "foreign experts" in science, business and other fields after the launch of reforms 30 years ago that sent the economy rocketing.

Thirty-eight foreign coaches were hired to help train China's teams, often with the explicit requirement that they produce gold-winning athletes. Among the best known are men's basketball coach Jonas Kazlauskas of Lithuania and his counterpart on the women's team, Australian Tom Maher. American Jim Lefebvre coached baseball, and Japan's Masayo Imura synchronized swimming, while a Spaniard is the women's water polo coach, a Russian heads the powerful rowing team and South Koreans coach both men's and women's field hockey.

"China's breakthrough in rowing wouldn't have been possible without foreign coaching," Wei Di, director of the China Water Sports Center, told reporters after China won gold in the women's quadruple sculls.

While foreign coaches seem to have melded well, the meeting of cultures has not always gone smoothly, particularly in sports where athletes and staff had been least exposed to foreign methods.

Rowing coach Igor Grinko raised hackles among some Chinese officials with changes to the training regime that included giving athletes two days of rest per week and separating the single and dual oar competitors into separate training groups.

Where positive competition results followed, as in rowing, the changes were accepted. When the results were disappointing, they weren't.

For instance, after drawing criticism for instituting reforms similar to Grinko's, German's Josef Capousek was fired as coach of the canoe and kayak team for what he called "political reasons," although the team still has three other Germans on its coaching staff.

The best coaches in the sporting world don't come cheap, and a large increase in funding has been critical to improving performance.

A report by the Communist Party's official Youth Daily on Saturday estimated spending on preparing China's athletes for the Beijing Olympics at $586 million.

While China's booming economy appears more than able to sustain that cost, officials remain eager to justify the spending by citing the example of other countries. The U.S., the argument goes, also provides a form of subsidy by selling commercial sponsorships

"The methodology is different, but the substance is the same," sports official Wei Jizhong, a top adviser to the Beijing Games organizers, was quoted as saying by the Youth Daily.

The other major component is political backing. Though in the run-up to the games political leaders declined to comment publicly on a specific medal target -- and sometimes conspicuously sought to downplay expectations -- they widely broadcast their lofty expectations through state media and public awareness campaigns, and backed them up with funding.

While the Chinese have reveled in their sporting success, popular commentator Xue Yong recently questioned the wisdom of training professional athletes to compete in sports such as rowing that are largely the province of amateurs.

In an editorial in the Shanghai Morning Post newspaper, Xue asked how such athletes were expected to support themselves after their competitive years are over, given the relative obscurity of their sports.

Li, the canoeist who finished sixth in his event, did not seem concerned by such questions.

"The success will definitely continue," the 19-year-old said. "And me, I'm still quite young myself."