Ian O'Riordancharts China's remarkable emergence as a sporting superpower and chances of topping the medals table in Beijing.
AT SOME point during all the lavish pomp that will be the Opening Ceremony in Beijing, that most innocent of phrases - "it's not the winning that matters, it's the taking part" - will again be spoken as the motto for 16 days of sporting idealism, and all of China will be masked in a sarcastic smile.
Surely, no Olympic host nation has been less concerned about the taking part, and more concerned about the winning - with the possible exception of Hitler's Games in Berlin in 1936. The whole theme of Beijing 2008, from the construction of the stadiums to what ultimately unfolds inside of them, is more along the lines of "anything you can do, we can do better".
While few people directly associated with China's Olympic coming-out party will publicly admit it, Beijing will be regarded as a failure - at least from a national sporting point of view - unless China tops the medal table. The reality is they have gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure they win more medals than anyone else, and the most populous country of all is almost certain to announce its arrival as the world's new sporting superpower - coinciding nicely with its similar economic status.
Briefly, it seemed, the great tragedy that was the Sichuan earthquake put the whole Olympic circus into perspective. For the tens of thousands whose lives were forever altered by that disaster the Beijing Olympics will come and go, but in the overwhelming interest of national pride, the Olympics were soon back in the headlines. Nothing, not even something as cataclysmic as an earthquake, could halt China's unrelenting drive to be the perfect host to the greatest show on earth.
It's not just their traditional sports the Chinese expect to win medals in: table tennis, gymnastics, and diving. They wants to excel in the headline sports: athletics, swimming and boxing. Eight years ago, just before they were given the right to host the 2008 Olympics, China launched Project 119, a campaign to win more gold medals in the more competitive events. Just four years later in Athens, the success of that project had already surpassed expectations. It wasn't meant to peak until now, and so the expectation ahead of Beijing has been revised again, upward.
They now have gold-medal favourites in practically every Olympic discipline - from swimmer Wu Peng to boxer Zou Shiming.
Considering China has never won a gold medal in boxing, and Liu Xiang was their first ever men's gold medallist on the track, in Athens four years ago, their sporting progress is probably even more impressive than anything achieved on an economic level.
No one can put even a loose figure on China's investment in sport, simply because cost is not an issue. It's now reckoned to be a €3-billion industry.
Arenas are built on a massive scale, and no questions are asked. Stories of the trawling for talent are hair-raising.
Potential elite competitors are identified as young as six and funnelled through provincial and regional training schools and on up into the national teams - provided they are good enough. It's usually just tough luck on those that aren't. The parents, usually, are the ones applying the most pressure to succeed.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about China's Olympic ambition is not so much the scale of it but the speed of it. When the Cultural Revolution engulfed China, in 1966, the Communist Party banned competitive sports, and athletes who had won medals of any sort found themselves accused of jinbiao zhuyi, or "trophy mania" - pitching individual achievement above the state's goal of mass athleticism was frowned upon.
China then shunned the whole Olympic ideal, usually by hiding behind a lengthy boycott in protest at Taiwan's participation. It wasn't until the Los Angeles Games of 1984 that they returned to the Olympic party, competing for the first time as the People's Republic of China. Since the founding of the People's Republic, in 1949, no Chinese athlete had ever stood on an Olympic medal podium.
By the end of the Los Angeles Games, China's team of 225 athletes had won 15 gold, eight silver, and nine bronze medals - and from being nowhere on the medal table, they ended up fourth, behind the US, Romania and Germany (the Soviet Union had boycotted those Olympics).
The honour of winning China's first ever Olympic gold medal went to a former barefoot doctor named Xu Haifeng, who, somewhat ironically, captured gold in the free pistol shooting.
The Soviet Union returned to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, topping the medal table, while China dropped down to 11th - winning just five gold medals.
Since then, however, the rise has been ominously impressive: fourth in Barcelona in 1992; fourth again in Atlanta 1996; third in Sydney 2000; and second in Athens four years ago - their gold medal total of 32 just four short of the USA's.
Given 80 per cent of that Chinese team were competing in their first Olympics, and historically speaking, home advantage in the Olympics increases the medal count by around 15 per cent, China look a safe bet to secure the number-one spot in Beijing.
This rise through the world's sporting ranks has not, however, come without problems. Back in 1993, China suddenly produced a fleet of world-record breakers in women's distance running, coached by a former prison guard called Ma Junren. They quickly became known as "Ma's Army", not least because Junren coached like a drill sergeant. He demanded daily marathons on the Tibetan plateau, banned dating, and insisted on a bizarre diet that reportedly included turtle blood and caterpillar fungus - the only secrets, he said, of his success.
But when a fisherman's daughter named Wang Junxia - one of his most famous pupils - won the 1993 World Championship 10,000 metres and set world records at 3,000 and 10,000 metres, the latter by an incredible 41.96 seconds, suddenly hard questions were asked. None of Junren's athletes failed a drugs test, but Wang fled his training camp in 1994, claiming, among other things, he had tried to force her to marry his son. Wang still won Olympic gold over 5,000 metres in 1996, but retired a year later, and to this day all the records and medals won by those Chinese athletes are marked with an asterisk.
There was worse to come. Seven Chinese swimmers were found to be taking steroids at the 1994 Asian Games, and China's doping crisis came to a head when enough human growth hormone to supply the entire national team was found in the bags of swimmer Yuan Yuan by customs officers at Sydney airport in January 1998, as she made her way to the World Championships in Perth.
In the investigation that followed, the Chinese Swimming Association admitted it had no control over what was happening in the provinces.
Just before the Sydney Olympics in 2000, China withdrew 27 athletes and 12 coaches from their team, for unexplained reasons. Just weeks earlier, however, the IOC had approved new testing methods to detect blood doping, and specifically EPO. The coincidence was obvious.
In 2002, China announced a plan to keep in a ring-fenced environment at the national training centre in Beijing those likely to qualify for the Olympic team, essentially to keep swimmers and coaches away from potential drug suppliers and corrupt local officials. The system has changed, and is now almost entirely state-run and monitored, yet few are naïve or foolish enough to believe Chinese sport is entirely drug free.
In early June, China announced a lifetime ban on Ouyang Kunpeng and his coach Feng Shangbao after the backstroke swimmer tested positive for the steroid clenbuterol - thus becoming the 46th Chinese swimmer since 1993 to test positive for banned substances. Under Fina and Wada rules, first-time offenders for anabolic steroids receive a two-year ban, but China wanted to send out a stern message: any athlete caught taking drugs is banned for life.
It's impossible to know how genuine is the effort to rid their sports of doping, but clearly there is a low tolerance for anyone that gets caught.
In the meantime, China has been developing a new breed of champions in events where their tradition was non-existent.
Going into the Athens Olympics four years ago, China unveiled a 20-year-old high hurdler named Liu Xiang, a Shanghai native with highlights in his hair and a love of Asian pop music and karaoke. Liu was as much an experiment as a mere athlete, and since 2001 the newly established China Institute of Sport Science (CISS) recorded every race Liu ran, often with three simultaneous cameras.
He delivered on all the hype and won the gold medal, equalling Colin Jackson's world record of 12.91 seconds and becoming China's first male track gold medallist (and only their second male athletics medallist after Zhu Jianhua took high-jump bronze in 1984).
Liu became a symbol of China's sporting future, dismissing the long-held view that genetically they could never match the larger, taller Western athletes: "I believe I achieved a modest miracle for the yellow-skinned Chinese people and the Asian people," Liu said after his gold-medal run.
China's Quest for Gold
Liu Xiang
Athletics
FOUR YEARS ago, aged just 21, Liu Xiang (left) became China's first male gold medallist on the track with victory in the 110-metre hurdles. He subsequently added the world title but recently saw his world record fall to Cuba's Dayron Robles. He is one of the faces of the Beijing Olympics and proof, compatriots say, the Chinese can overcome the genetic factors that supposedly have militated against their becoming world-class sprinters. No wonder his legs are insured for €85 million.
Feng Kun
Volleyball
A recent poll by the Xinhua News Agency revealed that the gold medal most desired by the Chinese public, after the 110 metre hurdles, was in the women's volleyball. Most of the pressure to deliver that medal rests with team captain Feng Kun, who had no problem handling that pressure when helping the team deliver the gold medal in Athens.
Guo Yue
Table Tennis
For years, table tennis has been the sport most associated with China. After the Cultural Revolution, China used table tennis to reconnect with the world, sometimes throwing matches to promote a friendlier mood. This is one Olympic title they won't want to lose, and 19-year-old Guo Yue is already the world champion and a household name in China, with her press conferences broadcast live on state television.
Zhu Lin
Badminton
With the obvious exception of table tennis, badminton is the one sport the Chinese perhaps takes the most serious of all. They'll be aiming for a clean sweep of the medals available in Beijing, and 24 year-old Zhu Lin is most expected to transfer her world championship winning form in the women's singles.
Guo Jingjing
Diving
Diving is another sport where China has excelled since its reintroduction to the sporting world, and 26 year-old Guo Jingjing is their headline act, having won double gold in Athens. She's a staple of the Beijing gossip magazines and reportedly has a string of high-profile boyfriends.
Wu Peng
Swimming
China may have a dubious record when it comes to swimming, but they have apparently unearthed a genuine star in 200 metre butterfly specialist (and Harry Potter lookalike) Wu Peng. He's already been tipped as the swimmer most likely to halt American Michael Phelps quest for a record eight gold medals, and if he succeeds, Wu will be granted a $25,000 bonus to go with his gold medal.
Du Li
Shooting
China won its first ever Olympic gold medal as recently as 1984, when a former "barefoot doctor" and chemical fertiliser salesman named Xu Haifing, somewhat ironically, captured gold in the free pistol shooting. This time the shooting hopes rest with Du Li, who has the added pressure of trying to win the first medal on offer in Beijing.
Yang Wei
Gymnastics
There was big pressure on Yang Wei to deliver a gymnastic gold in Athens, and he looked set to achieve that until he fell off the high bar, thus destroying his chance. He's come back with a vengeance and last year was the first gymnast to defend the all-round world title in 81 years.
Zou Shiming
Boxing
In 1959, when China organised its first National Games under Emperor Mao, boxing was formally dropped as a sport, and banned for being associated with the characteristics of capitalism. Just four years ago, Zou Shiming claimed China's first ever boxing Olympic medal by winning bronze in the light-flyweight division, and as reigning world champion, there's only one question to ask about his chances in Beijing: can one man cope with the expectation of 1.3 billion people?