|
Turtle blood, seahorse doused in alcohol, deer’s tail, dog’s kidney; Dalishen oral liquid (a formula based on seal’s private parts), ginseng, caterpillar fungus, acupuncture. . . |
If Chinese traditional medicine is not your scene, how about some western pioneered stuff like tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), dehydrochlormethyltestosterone, metandienone, methyltestosterone, nandrolone, oxandrolone, oxymetholone and stanozolol?
Over the years sportsmen have experimented with a variety of controversial substances with the hope of improving their performances. Many have been caught and punished, and many more may have slipped through the net because of inadequacies in testing procedures and legal systems.
Stimulants come with various side-effects and their impact on sporting performances is still a matter of considerable debate. A muscular sprinter fuelled by steroids could create a world record in the 100 metres, but a puny, 45-kilo runner will leave him panting and breathless just a couple of kilometres into a marathon.
Doping is a complex and expensive procedure that may or may not yield the desired results, but what has been proven beyond doubt is that nothing works better than plain hard work, willpower and good coaching. And, in the context of sport, few can claim to have combined these elements in recent times with such devastating effect as the Chinese.
Mao Zedong once said: “In the past, China was called ‘the sick man of East Asia’. Our economy and culture were seen as backward. The Chinese people were seen as unfit and they were weak at sports and athletics.’’
Now things have changed, and drastically at that. Treated with great suspicion in the past, Chinese sportsmen and women have blazed a glorious trail in recent years, giving nations like the USA, Germany, Great Britain, and Russia a run for the money in the international sporting stakes.
With its economy galloping at an enormous rate and its military and political might now globally recognized, albeit somewhat grudgingly, China has rightfully claimed its place in the larger global scheme of things, much to the Western world’s discomfort. Sport, inevitably, also plays a big part in this. Not just sport, but drug-free sport.
Now China’s state administration of physical culture and sports demands all traditional Chinese medicines be tested for stimulants before athletes can use them in domestic competitions. Unapproved remedies could result in stiff penalties, and in China they mean just that. The Sport Medicine Research Institute in Beijing has to give its seal of approval before any new concoction is tried on an athlete. “The Olympic spirit of fairness” is now what dictates things.
China has learned its lessons the hard way. Several of its athletes were caught in the dope trap prompting accusations that it was doing what the East Germans were thought to be doing the past - running an elaborate doping programme for its sportsmen.
Eleven members of the Chinese squad failed dope tests at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima. At the 1998 Perth Swimming World Championships, a human growth hormone was found in a Chinese swimmer’s luggage at Sydney airport and four more swimmers tested positive for a banned diuretic.
Scandal after scandal followed with turtle blood pioneering coach Ma Junren’s athletes testing positive for banned substances just before the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Ma himself faded away from the sporting scene to establish a successful dog-breeding business. Simple research also proved his famous turtle blood formula was no more potent than a benign concoction of water and sugar.
But you simply can’t keep the critics at bay, no matter how hard you try.
Sir Matthew Pinsent, the British rowing legend, once described Chinese training methods as “a pretty disturbing experience” after seeing a young gymnast being beaten by his coach.
According to him children were “pushed beyond acceptable limits” in the pursuit of excellence, which he felt amounted to abuse. He even suggested that Chinese coaching methods warranted a thorough scrutiny by the International Olympic Committee.
For the four-time gold medallist, it was a cultural shock, which was accentuated manifold when he was told that it was not the country’s sporting policy to beat the trainees, but the coaches had to do it often because the parents insisted on it!
In the West, beating children can even land parents in trouble with the law and corporal punishment is no more used to discipline students in school. Many American kids have dialled the magic number 911 to put their parents in a tight spot after being spanked.
In much of the East though, a sleek well-oiled cane is a handy tool that can be used as a deterrent as well as an instrument of correction. At the most it gives you a bloody backside, but the benefits are huge, say traditionalists.
Former IOC President, Dr Jacques Rogge, got it absolutely right when he told a British newspaper several years ago: “While it is not for us to condone what might not be acceptable, you also have to look at the cultural factor. I don’t need to remind you of the fact that physical punishment was still in use in English public schools until, I believe, the 1970s.
“This is something your society [in England] has overcome. Your society has decided that there will be no physical punishment in the UK, and I approve of that. But it was not so long ago that it was being used. So you have to compare cultural systems.”
To debate about which is the best method is often a pointless exercise. Eventually it all boils down to ‘no pain no gain’ whatever approach one takes. From wherever the pain comes, China surely is reaping the rewards.
The Chinese success story in the Olympics is the stuff of legend. From just one athlete who represented the country in 1932, and barred from competing for 28 years beginning with the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, they have come a long way, finishing second with 35 gold medals at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens and first with a whopping 51 gold in Beijing four years later.
Ironically, when the Chinese were allowed to participate at the 1984 Games after 28 years in the Olympic wilderness due to objections over its political status, it brought them to the same venue - Los Angeles - where a lone athlete had made a symbolic representation 52 years ago.
In 1984 though, the Chinese delegation comprised 250 athletes, with none of them having taken part in an event of such magnitude before.
Naturally, they attracted the world’s attention with their mere presence, but the global media’s curiosity turned into utter shock when the first gold medal of the Los Angeles Games was won by Chinese shooter Xu Haifeng in the men’s free pistol event. Chinese hearts filled with pride when the then IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch presented Xu his gold medal.
It was a breakthrough moment in Chinese sporting history and the emergence of a new sporting power to rival the USA and Russia was confirmed when China captured 15 gold medals in 1984, including three by one athlete - gymnast Li Ning who went on to become a household name.
Two years earlier, in New Delhi, they had toppled Japan from the top of the medals tally for the first time since the inaugural Asian Games in 1951.
In the past, the very idea of change was considered a hurdle to peaceful existence in China and one of the worst curses a Chinese could have for an enemy was, “may you live in exciting times.”
The Chinese have dumped that philosophy for good. If anything, change is the mantra they seem to have embraced with gusto. China now is constantly on the move, and it’s the world at large that is trying hard to keep pace.