BREEDING GIANTS? – basketballpilipinas China watch
I was researching rumors of 100 Chinese 7-footers being trained in their secret basketball camps around China and I got this report. A disturbing report I don’t know whether to believe it or not. There are two propagandas at work American and Chinese and I don’t trust them both. I’m very interested in Chinese basketball I’ve got a lot of files about it.
Chinese sports' giant question mark
Far from being a chance creation, Chinese basketball giant Yao Ming was knowingly bred for the sport, forced into it against his will and subjected to years of dubious science to increase his height, a new book claims.
The 2.28-metre Houston Rockets centre also underwent years of punishing training as one of hundreds of thousands of potential Chinese athletes who endure miserable childhoods in boot-camp conditions.
The revelations in Operation Yao Ming, by former Newsweek journalist Brook Larmer, are likely to raise further disquiet over China's Soviet-style sports system ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Larmer said Yao, China's first successful basketball export and its most famous face worldwide, was the product of a harsh and antiquated programme which has changed little since it was set up more than 50 years ago under Mao Zedong.
"Yao on one hand is this great symbol of China's modern advancement, a commercial icon that can stride across the Pacific and play the role of a bridge between East and West," he said.
"But he's still the product of this system which is one of the last bastions of socialism in China."
Larmer says Yao's birth had been anticipated for decades by Communist officials - desperate to boost national pride through sports - who had been tracking his family for two generations.
He describes a system where doctors armed with special growth-predicting manuals measure youngsters' bones and pubic hair to identify future athletes. Weightlifters must be squat with strong torsos; divers need tiny hips to minimise splash; basketball players must simply be tall.
"It's no accident that there have been generations of players who have continued to get taller," he said.
"One of the first NBA scouts was blown away when he went to northern China and saw more than 20 seven-footers."
Yao's grandfather, one of Shanghai's tallest men, was discovered too late for basketball but his son, the six foot nine Yao Zhiyuan, soon found himself dragged into the sports system.
There he was paired off with the six foot two Fang Fengdi, China's women's captain who had been a feared Red Guard during the murderous Cultural Revolution.
The two were encouraged to marry in a system with undertones of eugenics, the controversial gene-pool manipulation espoused by the Nazis and previously trumpeted by Beijing.
"It wasn't a national breeding programme, it was a desire among Shanghai officials for them to get together," Larmer said.
I was researching rumors of 100 Chinese 7-footers being trained in their secret basketball camps around China and I got this report. A disturbing report I don’t know whether to believe it or not. There are two propagandas at work American and Chinese and I don’t trust them both. I’m very interested in Chinese basketball I’ve got a lot of files about it.
Chinese sports' giant question mark
Far from being a chance creation, Chinese basketball giant Yao Ming was knowingly bred for the sport, forced into it against his will and subjected to years of dubious science to increase his height, a new book claims.
The 2.28-metre Houston Rockets centre also underwent years of punishing training as one of hundreds of thousands of potential Chinese athletes who endure miserable childhoods in boot-camp conditions.
The revelations in Operation Yao Ming, by former Newsweek journalist Brook Larmer, are likely to raise further disquiet over China's Soviet-style sports system ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Larmer said Yao, China's first successful basketball export and its most famous face worldwide, was the product of a harsh and antiquated programme which has changed little since it was set up more than 50 years ago under Mao Zedong.
"Yao on one hand is this great symbol of China's modern advancement, a commercial icon that can stride across the Pacific and play the role of a bridge between East and West," he said.
"But he's still the product of this system which is one of the last bastions of socialism in China."
Larmer says Yao's birth had been anticipated for decades by Communist officials - desperate to boost national pride through sports - who had been tracking his family for two generations.
He describes a system where doctors armed with special growth-predicting manuals measure youngsters' bones and pubic hair to identify future athletes. Weightlifters must be squat with strong torsos; divers need tiny hips to minimise splash; basketball players must simply be tall.
"It's no accident that there have been generations of players who have continued to get taller," he said.
"One of the first NBA scouts was blown away when he went to northern China and saw more than 20 seven-footers."
Yao's grandfather, one of Shanghai's tallest men, was discovered too late for basketball but his son, the six foot nine Yao Zhiyuan, soon found himself dragged into the sports system.
There he was paired off with the six foot two Fang Fengdi, China's women's captain who had been a feared Red Guard during the murderous Cultural Revolution.
The two were encouraged to marry in a system with undertones of eugenics, the controversial gene-pool manipulation espoused by the Nazis and previously trumpeted by Beijing.
"It wasn't a national breeding programme, it was a desire among Shanghai officials for them to get together," Larmer said.
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