Sam Davis and Matthew Walsh
The splashes of young athletes hitting the water and the cheers of coaches echo around a Beijing pool where the next generation of Chinese diving champions are training.
On Saturday in Paris, China's diving team won all eight gold medals, marking the first time that has happened.
And their success inspires others back home.
At the Muyuan Sports Center, home to Beijing's top diving school, about a dozen young divers leapt, spun and dove into the water from boards ranging from a few centimeters to 10 meters high.
The children, as young as seven, stood bewildered on the edge of a platform nearly two stories above the water, catching their breath and then jumping into the air.
With their legs stretched out, their toes pointed, and their arms outstretched, they barely created a ripple on the surface of the pool.
Among the dozen or so children was 12-year-old Zhang Jiarui, who took up diving three years ago after watching Chinese diver Cao Yuan win gold at the Tokyo Games.
“I was a bit naughty as a child, so my parents sent me to gymnastics,” she told AFP.
“When I saw the Chinese diving team on TV reaching the top of the Olympic podium, I fell in love with diving and decided to give it a try.”
While most schoolchildren are on summer break, Zhang and her peers train for more than seven hours a day.
Many have already been selected from less prestigious diving schools across the country, and the best of them will continue to compete under the Chinese flag.
“If you rest too long, it can affect your training,” she explained.
During the school year, “we have classes in the morning and training in the afternoon,” she explained.
“We have to study harder to keep up.”
“Innate qualities”
Chinese divers have won 22 of the last 24 Olympic gold medals, and China has been the most successful diving nation at every Games since 1984.
Coach Cao Ke is in charge of a group of divers aged eight to ten, among whom he is trying to identify future medal winners.
“We're primarily looking for innate qualities such as strength, explosiveness and spatial awareness, as well as a sense of water,” he said.
“We also take into account their attitude to training and their competitiveness in simulated competitions.”
Coach Cao Ke watched from the edge of the pool as his students practiced jumps and somersaults.
“You're leaning back too much,” he said softly to one girl practicing a backflip.
The young athletes then moved into a gymnasium with springboards, jumping mats and trampolines, with Cao using ropes and harnesses to hold them in jumping positions and adjust their positions.
Not all of them have the necessary qualities – Cao said he will eventually identify those who have the potential to become elite athletes and eliminate those who do not reach the required level.
“Diving requires meticulous attention to detail. It takes time to perfect every move,” he explained.
“There is no secret weapon in Chinese diving. It's all down to everyone's hard work.”
“Train hard”
China's dominance in diving is based on a ruthlessly efficient system for developing talent.
“In China, professional training starts at the age of five or six,” Ma Jin, the Chinese head coach of Mexico's national diving team, told AFP.
“Abroad they only play (at this age) and do not have specialized early training.”
Quan Hongchang, who won two golds in Paris and one in Tokyo when she was just 14, started diving at the age of seven, allegedly after a coach spotted her playing on the school playground.
Cao Yuan, who won the men's 10m platform diving final in Paris, started diving when he was just five years old.
Ma said Chinese diving has an “incomparable” advantage in “research, nutrition, physical therapy, training, facilities and equipment.”
For example, Muxiyuan hires specialized chefs to prepare meals for young athletes.
Another coach told AFP that the school yoghurt was produced exclusively for students and was not available to the general public.
Hongping Li, a former Olympic diver from China, said the fact that most of the country's “coaches were themselves leading divers at the national or Olympic level” gave them another advantage.
Zhang told AFP she would “train hard” to join her compatriots on the Olympic stage.
“I want to bring glory to the country.”
Dateline:
Beijing, China
Story Type: News Service
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