China's gold medals came at a high price

Los Angeles Times ^ | August 25, 2008 | Barbara Demick

[george76]

Athletes sacrificed dearly -- one was separated from her toddler, one was banned from eating dinner, one missed a parent's funeral. While Americans spoke of fun, the Chinese were on a 'sacred mission.'

If anybody feels a pang of jealousy over China's haul of Olympic gold medals, they need only pause to consider what the athletes went through to get them.

The only mother on China's team, Xian Dongmei, told reporters after she won her gold medal in judo that she had not seen her 18-month-old daughter in one year, monitoring the girl's growth only by webcam. Another gold medalist, weightlifter Cao Lei, was kept in such seclusion training for the Olympics that she wasn't told her mother was dying. She found out only after she had missed the funeral.

Chen Ruolin, a 15-year-old diver, was ordered to skip dinner for one year to keep her body sharp as a razor slicing into the water. The girl weighs 66 pounds.

"To achieve Olympic glory for the motherland is the sacred mission assigned by the Communist Party central," is how Chinese Sports Minister Liu Peng put it at the beginning of the Games.

The contrast couldn't be greater than between the Chinese and U.S. athletes. In their post-match interviews, the Americans rambled on about their parents, their siblings, their pets, their hobbies. They repeatedly used the word fun.

The Chinese athletes generally don't have pets, hobbies, brothers or sisters (since most are products of China's one-child policy).

[indcons]

Ponder Life - you clown - come here and explain this outrage.

Of course, I’m sure that oppressing these poor athletes and the old women whose homes were demolished to build Birds Nest stadium is perfectly fine for the likes of you as long as it “benefits” the fatherland.

[AmericanInTokyo]

The Sparta parallel was BRILLIANT.

I had not thought of that.

[ponder life]

Ponder Life - you clown - come here and explain this outrage.

I believe you to be the clown.

Of course, I’m sure that oppressing these poor athletes...

No collective system is perfect, but those 700 hundred atheletes didn't compete at gun point. The number of gold taken cannot be taken unless people have some internal drive to succeed.

and the old women whose homes were demolished to build Birds Nest stadium is perfectly fine for the likes of you as long as it “benefits” the fatherland.

Eminent domain exists here in the US as well. Go ahead and search the web, and you will see countless stories of families and the elderly moved from their homes in the US as well.

But I don't want to debate eminent domain. I want to know, WHY? are you so concerned about it in China. In order for construction to march ahead like it does in China, eminent domain will be practiced. China has a goal to dam most of it's rivers, build its freeway, airports, etc. How will it complete it if it doesn't move some people? Not everyone will move willingly.

America's freeway system was built using eminent domain. Why are you so concerned about it in China? Unless......of course......you DON'T want China to build.