French coach Hugues Obry carries Sun Yiwen of Team China as the pair celebrate Sun’s victory in the women’s epee individual final against Ana Maria Popescu of Romania at the Olympics in Chiba, Tokyo, on July 24. (ANDREW MEDICHINI / AP)
Even dealing with cultural differences, the language barrier and homesickness exacerbated by the pandemic, a group of foreign coaches has hit on a medal-winning formula with China’s hardworking Olympians at Tokyo 2020.
Halfway through the action by Aug 2, Team China had already surpassed its gold medal haul from the previous Olympics, enjoying a series of breakthroughs in some of the country’s underdeveloped sports, masterminded by a foreign legion of world-class coaches and trainers.
Guided by a total of 30 foreigners — the most among a Chinese delegation since the 2008 Beijing Games — Team China has expanded its prowess to a number of Western-dominated sports such as fencing, rowing and sprinting.
Before departing for Tokyo, the head of China’s delegation, Gou Zhongwen, called on the nation’s athletes to improve on the Rio haul and stop the country’s slide down the medal table at recent Olympics.
After topping the standings with 48 golds at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Team China finished second behind the United States with 38 golds at London in 2012, but third with only 26 golds in Rio in 2016 behind the US and Great Britain.
Gou, who is also president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, said the aim of Team China was “to make sure that we finish within the leading positions on the medal table” while ensuring the country’s commitment to “competing for clean medals with integrity and sportsmanship”.
The success stems from a unique blend of foreign expertise with the traditionally rigorous State-run development system.
It is an alliance perhaps best epitomized by the moment when French coach Hugues Obry carried fencer Sun Yiwen on his shoulder after Sun claimed China’s first Olympic gold medal in women’s individual epee on July 24.
Obry, a gold-medal winner with the French men’s team at the 2004 Olympics, joined China’s national program five years ago, tasked with reviving an epee team that left the Rio Games without any golds.
“For me, it was not a tough decision to make,” Obry told China Daily through an interpreter in Tokyo. “I was intrigued by the challenge to work with a foreign team away from home, and to see if I could bring my understanding of fencing to a different culture and make it work.
“For my family in France, it was probably a hard decision. But they accepted the choice I made and the sacrifice paid off,” added Obry, who has spent most of the past five years away from his wife and two kids.
Obry’s compatriots, Christian Bauer and Daniel Levavasseur, led China’s swordsmen and women to gold medals at Beijing 2008 (men’s individual saber) and London 2012 (women’s team epee).
The disappointing performance at Rio 2016 triggered a reshuffle of the national program, with Obry immediately shaking things up by picking a new generation of talent.
“My selection was not the strongest at that time, but I picked those that I could help improve the most and who were committed to working with me until 2020.
“Chinese athletes are all hardworking, which instantly impressed me,” Obry said.
“What they lacked was the quality and intensity in training. They have to train hard enough in the right way, not just for long enough.”
China head coach Petar Porobic yells to players during a preliminary round women's water polo match against Hungary at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Aug 1, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (MARK HUMPHREY / AP)
Under Obry’s guidance, Sun, one of only two fencers in the squad in Tokyo with previous Olympic experience, fended off a series of tough opponents before meeting world No 1
Ana Maria Popescu in the final. Sun outmaneuvered the Romanian veteran with composure and precision to secure an 11-10 overtime win.
In the euphoria of victory, Obry stormed onto the piste cheering loudly and holding a Chinese flag to celebrate with his protege, creating an Olympic moment that will live long in the nation’s memory.
“I should’ve held her up higher,” Obry said. “There’s no better stage to express our emotions and celebrate our efforts than the Olympics.”
Following up the fencers’ foreign-aided success was the country’s rowing team.
Overseen by British legend Steve Redgrave, Chinese rowers pocketed a gold in the women’s quadruple sculls and two bronze medals from men’s double sculls and women’s eight in Tokyo — the first time China has taken home three rowing medals from an Olympic regatta.
Citing the potential he identified in the talent pool and the training support only available in China’s State system, Redgrave is bullish on the country’s chances of sustaining elite performance in the sport.
“I was brought in to try and build the team to be the best rowing nation in the world,” said Redgrave, who was hired as a high-performance director in 2018.
“To win three medals puts us as the best Chinese rowing performance at Olympic Games ever … that’s a good start,” said the Briton, the only rower to win five golds at five consecutive Games.
“They have the athletes training full time as much as they need. They are at permanent training camps, whereas most Western countries have problems of traveling to camps.
“What they lack is the confidence that they can be the best in the world, and if we can deal with that, then the rest of the world should be very scared of what China can do, with or without me.”
As the world’s most decorated figure in rowing, Redgrave had never thought he would one day take his 40 years of experience to the East until China came knocking and offered him a blank canvas.
“My former manager rang me up and said, ‘you fancy working in China?’ My first answer was ‘no’, I am happy with my life. I am playing golf and being able to see my family,” Redgrave recalled.
“But there’s a part of me that misses being part of a team … It is actually easier to deal with teams that are not so strong because there’s more space to go.”
With his contract signed through Paris 2024, Redgrave reckons that multiple golds should now be the target in three years’ time.
Working far from home had never seemed too much of an issue for China’s foreign coaches, until COVID-19 wreaked havoc on international travel.
With China tightening its border controls in early 2020 to curb imported coronavirus cases, both Redgrave and Obry had to stay with their teams in China much longer than expected, without being able to occasionally travel back home during holidays.
Redgrave stayed with the rowing squad at northeast Beijing’s Shunyi district since last September until departing for Tokyo, missing his daughter’s 30th birthday. Obry admitted that he missed his family more than he ever expected.
“I didn’t consider family time as precious as I do now. When you have to leave them far away for so long, you realize how important your family is,” said the Frenchman, who has promised to take his family on vacation across China once the pandemic is under control.
For Redgrave, the Tokyo Olympics not only delivered a breakthrough for his team but also a well-earned family reunion.
Badminton doubles expert Kang Kyung-jin from South Korea is among 30 foreigners coaching Team China athletes at the Tokyo Olympics. (LIU YUE / FOR CHINA DAILY)
The Englishman got to see his wife, who works with the British Olympic team as a doctor, for the first time in months in Tokyo and returned home with her after the regatta finished on July 31. “Being away from them has made me miss them so much.”
On Aug 1, after sprinter Su Bingtian dashed to track glory in Tokyo that cheered up the nation, his American coach Randy Huntington left the stadium as probably the only member of the Chinese team to feel a little downbeat.
Clocking an Asian-record 9.83 seconds, Su became the first Chinese to reach an Olympic 100-meter final, shattering the notion that Asians are not built to succeed in this event.
Su was ultimately let down by a slow start out of the blocks in the final to finish sixth in 9.98. However, his stunning semifinal victory to qualify with the fastest time was already inspiration enough for young sprinters across Asia to follow in his lightning-fast steps.
“I hope my performance today can inspire younger athletes to keep pushing forward with their sporting careers,” a proud Su said after the Aug 1 final at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.
“After what I did today, I hope they can start to believe that, supported by scientific training, they can also crack the 10-second barrier sooner than they expect, and they can achieve more than I have in the future.”
A false start in the final by Britain’s Zharnel Hughes appeared to upset Su’s momentum, and he was unable to replicate his explosive semifinal launch when the start gun sounded for a second time.
Italian sprinter Lamont Marcell Jacobs took gold in 9.80, ahead of Fred Kerley of the United States (9.84) and Andre de Grasse of Canada (9.89).
Huntington, who was hired by the Chinese Athletics Association in 2013 to oversee sprinting and long jump training, told reporters afterwards, “I wish we could have gotten China its first medal, but it didn’t happen. That’s a failure, but it’s not a bad failure to have.”
Huntington reckoned the quick two-hour turnaround from semifinal to final ultimately proved too taxing for Su to grab a medal.
“This is my fault to a large degree that we didn’t exactly train him to be able to come back from that kind of race and do another one just as fast,” he said.
“I think he could have had a silver medal if we had him a little bit better prepared … he’s technically running better. You still need to work on the last part of his race. There’s still a conditioning issue in the last 25 meters.”
Huntington counts current men’s long jump world-record holder Mike Powell and 1980s triple jump great Willie Banks among his former pupils, but he already ranks Su’s Tokyo feat among his finest coaching achievements.
“Su is the now the fastest athlete of non-African descent or mixed African descent absolutely in history. That’s an incredible accomplishment,” said Huntington.
“Now the floodgates are going to open. You are going to have athletes from all the different Asian countries understand that they can be Su Bingtian as well.”
Su had already made his mark by becoming the first Chinese to run 100m under 10 seconds in 2015.
But his career stalled in the following years, and he even mulled retirement four years ago to spend more time with his family after taking a teaching position at Jinan University in his hometown Guangzhou.
However, he could not resist one last attempt at Olympic glory, and two 9.91 runs in 2018 to tie the Asian record boded well for the Tokyo Games.
Injuries and a failure to qualify for the men’s 100m final at the 2019 world championships in Doha sowed some seeds of doubt in Su’s mind, but he rebounded with 9.98 at China’s Olympic trials in June.
“I’ve realized the dreams of generation after generation of Chinese athletes. I think I won’t set any personal goals anymore. I will just enjoy the purity of the sport from now on,” Su said.
Contact the writers at sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn
