Lifting more than their body weight
While most children enjoy their holidays by attending summer camps or throwing themselves into their hobbies, some boys and girls are sweating out in sports schools, practising to one day reach their Olympic dreams.
In a bungalow of the Xiamen Competitive Sports Management Center, Fujian Province, dozens of junior weightlifters are busy training under the watchful gaze of their coaches.
Gao Xisong, 13, has been exercising harder in recent days. Weighing only 32 kilograms, she can hoist up iron plates weighing 37 kilograms. Her dream to be a top weightlifter has become firmer than ever since a former student of the same school, Lin Qingfeng, won the gold medal in the men's 69 kg weightlifting category at the London Olympic Games on July 31.
Lin, 23, started when he was 10, had trained at the center for four years, before being selected for the provincial team in 2003 and then for the national squad in 2010.
The whole center, especially its close to 70 weightlifting trainees, was excited at the news.
China has become a steady competitor in worldwide weightlifting events. At the ongoing London Games, China's team of 10 weightlifters has reaped five gold and two silver medals.
However, a mere handful can fulfill their dreams. All the trainees first try to make the national weightlifting team, which is made up of fewer than 100 athletes.
Cao Xinmin, a weightlifting coach in Jiangsu Province, said that around 20,000 prospective weightlifters are training nationwide.
However, Pan Qingyuan, deputy director of the center, told the Global Times on Monday that the number must be much bigger, since Fujian has 2,000 weightlifting trainees alone.
Pan admitted that most kids sent to weightlifting schools come from poor families.
"But as livelihoods improve, fewer parents want to send their children off to become weightlifters," he said. "After all, unlike most other sports, weightlifting requires more hardship, is less interesting, and offers fewer job options after retirement."
Global Times
