Rio 2. 01. 6 Olympics Inside Chinas Diving Dominance. Tang Zixuan is five years old, pixie faced with callused palms. She knows why she will succeed at the sport of diving, just like her hometown heroine Liu Huixia, who will be competing in Rio. I enjoy eating bitterness, Tang chirps in her little girl voice, using a Chinese expression for the ability to endure suffering. Next to her, another diving prodigy at the Huangshi state sports school in central Chinas Hubei province interrupts. I like eating bitterness, too, she says. I can do everything by myself. Yet another pair of five year old girls show off their blisters and calluses. Women-Coliseum-800x450.jpg' alt='2016 Men S Marathon Olympic Trials 2020' title='2016 Men S Marathon Olympic Trials 2020' />2016 Men S Marathon Olympic Trials ResultsTiny biceps bulge. The future of Chinas Olympic juggernaut diving squad depends on the dedication of undersized athletes like Tang. Cultivated by the state from the moment they are barely out of diapers, these children are funneled into government academies charged with one task fashioning them into aquatic contortionists who will bring glory to the Peoples Republic. From winning just five gold medals at the 1. LargeL/08d61183-da75-4b74-a101-eb271dabda1d.jpg?v=91129355' alt='2016 Men S Marathon Olympic Trials Television' title='2016 Men S Marathon Olympic Trials Television' />Seoul Games, China claimed 5. Beijing two decades later, the biggest haul of any nation at those Games. Four years ago in London, the Chinese diving team captured six of eight diving gold medals on offer. Read More The Must Watch Swimming Events in RioIn Rio, Chinas 1. Hubei provinces Liu did her part Tuesday, winning gold in the synchronized 1. Chen Ruolin. Such domination of a single sport is surpassed only by Chinas own monopoly over table tennis and badminton, in which Chinese athletes captured every single 2. Olympic gold. This supremacy is a source of pride for a nation still sensitive about how foreign powers once carved it up. An athlete without a sense of patriotism cant go too far, says Zhu Qingmin, the director of Hubei provinces swimming and diving administration. The sustained success of the diving team comes as China has softened aspects of its state run, Soviet style sports system. The State General Administration of Sport once recruited tens of thousands of children for the sporting cause, no matter what sacrifices were required. At a time of famine and poverty, rural parents saw government run sports academies, with their well stocked canteens, as a refuge. But Chinas basic needs were met more than a generation ago. Men S Marathon Olympic Trials RunnersAnd because of the one child family planning policy, the nation teems with coddled only children. In the past, families had more than one child so if the state could raise one kid, parents would be very happy, says Yao Junying, a gymnastics coach at Huangshi sports school. But now, most families have just one child so they are reluctant to give their kid over to us completely. After all, what parent wants their child to grow up like Zou Chunlan, a champion Chinese weightlifter who famously ended up working as a public bathroom attendant because she could barely read In the past, if you were a good athlete, you didnt have to take academic exams, says Yu Lianming, the coach who scouted Olympic diver Liu. The old athletes ignored their studies. At Huangshi, one of thousands of cogs in the nations athletic assembly line where coach Yu now works, most children no longer board at the school. The head of Guineas Olympic delegation says two athletes did not return to the West African nation after competing at the Rio Olympics. Atef Chaloub said. Qualifying window August 1, 2013 to January 17, 2016 Qualifying Guidelines. Athletes must meet the B standard in order to enter the 2016 U. S. Olympic Team Trials. The Canadian Olympic Curling Trials take place December 210, 2017 from Ottawa. Heres what the nine mens and nine womens rinks need to do in order to qualify for. From failing to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics to going into the 2016 Games on the back of a silver medal in the Champions Trophy, the Indian mens hockey team. No longer do child athletes have to spend every waking moment pursuing physical perfection. Instead, students live at home and attend academic classes. Read More This Team Could Be the Best Story of the Olympics But if most of the families have little expectation of Olympic splendor, the school administrators feel. The mens marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis took place on August 30 of that year, over a distance of 24. Thirtytwo athletes representing. With a packed schedule that includes the Winter Olympic Games, the 201718 curling season should be a roller coaster ride. Take a look at major storylines and. After normal school is done, the kids come to Huangshi to sweat it out in the 1. F 4. 0 C degree heat of the academys non air conditioned gym. Grandparents hover, water bottles, cold towels and smartphone games at the ready. Yus husband weaves among the diving students with a long red stick poised behind his back but the kids dont seem concerned about the threat of corporal punishment. One four year old boy in underpants and singlet spends an hour wailing and calling for his mother. She shakes her head from the sidelines. I dont expect him to be a national champion, Tong Yanli says of her bawling son, whose breath emerges in ragged hiccups as he does his stomach crunches. I just want him to have good health and become a tough boy instead of a spoiled one. Read More This Team Could Be the Best Story of the OlympicsBut if most of the families have little expectation of Olympic splendor, the school administrators feel ever more pressure in an era of budget cutbacks. In recent years, state sports czars have begun paying attention to the nations overall fitnesschildhood obesity is on the riseas opposed to lavishing most funding on the creation of world champions. In the race to claim a smaller pool of government money, Huangshi officials hope the school will profit from its connection to Liu, who is Hubeis sole representative on the Chinese Olympic diving squad. The accounting is clear if Liu wins gold in Rio, everyone who had a hand in her success will receive cash from state sport coffers. Huangshi needs the money. The school, which proudly counts Liu as an alumnus, doesnt even have a pool or diving board for its diving program. Instead, the kids must plunge into foam mattresses and spend weekends commuting to a faraway pool. 6016 Sunrise Vista Drive Citrus Heights Ca 95610 there. Liu, it turns out, never actually attended Huangshi. Instead, the schools link to the world champion diver is through Yu, Lius old coach. If Liu Huixia wins this time, I can ask the officials to install a diving board for me, Yu says. She and her adult daughter, a coach and former elite diver who never quite made it to the Olympic level, have even greater ambitions. We could open a private diving club, says Yu, and use Liu Huixias name to promote it. In the U. S., the land of the Nick Bollettieri tennis academy and Karolyi gymnastics camp, such a business plan sounds natural. But in state run China, its only recently that sports legends have begun to open up their own academies for sports like gymnastics, fencing and snooker. One step up the state athletic ladder from Huangshi is the 1. Hubei Olympic Sports Center in provincial capital Wuhan, where theres little sign of any budgetary pressure. The complex comes complete with its own food sourcing system, lest athletes ingest steroid tainted meat that could lead to failed drug tests. Kids are allowed time on their smartphones theres Wi. Fi. Still, even at this breeding ground of champion divers, officials fret about the eight year gap between Lius 2. Hubei diver to also rank No. Provincial swimming and diving director Zhu is skeptical that the new government initiative to bring sports to the masses will ensure China future Olympic glory. In Japan and Britain, peoples health is good but their competitive sports are only so so, he says. Its hard to say whether we can keep our top status in competitive sports. Of course, the U. S., which won the most gold medals of any country at London 2. Programs like Little League baseball, youth soccer and tiny tots gymnastics are largely for fun and relatively low stakes competition, not for the creation of a few hundred champions who labor for the state. But its hard for Chinese sports officials to pivot completely to a new system. At the Hubei pool, a 1. Endure hardship, revive the Hubei diving team, it reads. At the entrance of the sports complex looms a giant poster of Chairman Mao Zedong, who birthed the state sports system to prove the strength of his new Peoples Republic. Back in the 1. 98. Zhu toiled as a coach for the socialist state. His salary The equivalent of 6 a month in todays money.