Forswearing Romance for Sport

On January 23, 2004, Cai Zhenhua, head coach of China National Table Tennis Team and deputy director of Table Tennis and Badminton Administrative Center of the State General Administration of Sports, announced that four athletes were to be dropped from his team. This was big news. Their misdemeanor? Dating their fellow team members.

Cai is a sports celebrity in China who underwent surgery for a slipped disc before the World Table Tennis Championship in Tianjin in 1995. Despite being in considerable pain after the operation, he accompanied his athletes to the competition and guided the Men’s Team to victory in the Men’s Team Championship, an event that had been won by the Swedish team for the six years from 1989 to 1994.

Cai Zhenhua sets a good example to his young athletes, but he is also very strict, and punishes them severely if they break the rules. He expects his athletes, like him, to put the interests of the country above their own.

The four athletes dismissed in January, three young women and one young man, included Bai Yang, girlfriend of Ma Lin, International Table Tennis Federation number one seed, and Fan Ying, girlfriend of number three seed Wang Hao. Cai believes he had valid reason for dismissing these four athletes: “As the China National Table Tennis Team was going to the Athens Olympics, it faced great challenges and was about to embark on a strenuous training regimen. I had to be strict because dating between our team members severely affected their performance during training.”

Sports Training Bureau rules forbid women athletes under 25 years old and men athletes under 28 years old from dating their teammates. “We are aware of the emotional needs of our athletes and that marriage is an important step in their lives,” says Liu Fengyan, director of the Table Tennis and Badminton Administrative Center. “But as we also want them to maintain their sports careers for as long as possible we allow them to date, as long as it doesn’t affect their training.”

The four dismissed athletes made no complaint about the harsh punishment meted out by their coach Cai Zhenhua and said they would train hard in their provincial teams with the aim of getting back into the national team.

There are some happy couples in Chinese sports circles, such as water diving king and queen Tian Liang and Guo Jingjing, world famous basketball player Yao Ming and his girlfriend Ye Li and former badminton champions Sun Jun and Ge Fei.

Sun Jun and Ge Fei first met at Children’s Sports School when Sun was only eleven years old. A few years later they were both selected by the National Badminton Team and often went abroad to train and participate in international competitions together. They feel closer as time goes on. In Sun Jun’s words, “As our relationship developed naturally, rather than our having fallen in love at first sight, I think it will be long lasting.”

As the Chinese national sports teams train all year round, these young men and women spend most of their time on the training ground and seldom have opportunity to get in touch with people of their own age group outside sporting circles. They are, in effect, either training or asleep. When ennui sets in they send short text messages to each other on their mobiles, and some begin to date. Certain Chinese women champions are stunningly beautiful but few men dare approach them because of their high reputation and social status. Teammates have similar mindsets, lifestyle and waking hours, so more and more couples are emerging from within Chinese national sports teams.