| StylinRed | 02-15-2010 02:25 AM |
did anyone read the actual article instead of some guys blog?? Quote:
The Chinese gymnasts arrived at the Blackcomb training camp in Whistler, B.C., with new Burton boards and little else to equip them for snowboarding.
Their lack of English and their difficult names forced their Canadian halfpipe instructors to improvise. The instructors gave the teenagers nicknames such as Sun and Cliff, based on natural features seen from the mountain. They taught them tricks such as 720-degree spins and McTwists through a snowboard version of charades. After long days on snow, when most young riders might want to chill, the Chinese duelled in a park with wooden swords.
As word spread about China's fledgling snowboard team, people flocked to the halfpipe to see the spectacle. Tom Hutchinson, the head freestyle coach for Canada's national team, found the scene darkly comic. The teens seemed unsure on their boards, but if they launched off the five-metre-high wall of the halfpipe, they twisted and flipped like acrobats.
Some members of the national team pitied the young athletes who seemed so out of place in Whistler-Blackcomb's close-knit snowboard community. But Mr. Hutchinson's initial thought was, "We're in trouble." Five years later, China has tipped the snowboarding halfpipe world off its axis.
One of the girls at the Whistler training camp - 17-year-old Liu Jiayu, a shy former gymnast called Birdie by her Blackcomb instructors - is a gold-medal contender going into the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. She was the 2009 overall World Cup champion in just her second year on the circuit. She also won silver last year at the Olympic venue at Cypress Mountain, at a contest featuring the four U.S. and Australian riders who have dominated the sport since American Kelly Clark won gold in 2002.
At the root of Ms. Liu's rapid ascent is a tried and true Chinese strategy: Pick an underdeveloped event, pluck young athletes with the appropriate body and skills out of government-funded sports schools, and hire expert foreign coaches. Ben Wainwright, the owner of Glacier Snowboard Camp and the man Chinese officials hired for the six-week camp sponsored by Burton, said the 12 gymnasts and martial artists had never set foot inside a halfpipe before they arrived in Blackcomb. But their goal was to reach the podium in 2010.
"I think they saw it as something they could do well at," Mr. Wainwright says. "They looked at it as something very gymnastics-oriented."
The strategy may seem uncomfortably formulaic to most Westerners, and it is especially at odds in snowboarding, a sport that has traditionally attracted rebels and free spirits raised on snow. Big sponsors and the debut of the halfpipe and parallel giant slalom events at the 1998 Olympics have transformed it into a sophisticated and competitive sport, but many of the world's top riders still espouse the mantra that snowboarding is, above all else, about having fun with your friends.
"That's not the heart and soul of snowboarding," says Dominique Vallée, a member of Canada's halfpipe team. "It's not a boot camp, and it's not at all costs."
Nevertheless, the Chinese invasion has forced the sport's old guard to face a choice: Raise the ante, or learn to lose.
Since China's first Winter Games, in 1980, its total haul of 33 medals, including four gold, has been dismal compared to the tsunami of hardware it has collected at Summer Games, including 51 gold medals in 2008 in Beijing alone.
Most of China's winter success has come from short-track speed skating. However, China has selectively diversified in recent years. In Vancouver, China could reach the podium in men's and women's aerials, women's curling and long-track speed skating, all sports in which it has only recently become a threat.
What's happening now can be linked to an experiment the Chinese undertook in 2004, when they hired Dustin Wilson, a former World Cup aerialist from Alberta, to coach their struggling aerials squad. Two years later in Turin, Italy, Han Xiaopeng became China's first male winter athlete to win Olympic gold, and Li Nina took silver in the women's event. China's aerials team continues to be a powerhouse.
"I opened a Pandora's box," Mr. Wilson said during an interview at a recent World Cup freestyle ski event in Calgary.
In Chinese media reports, Mr. Wilson has been compared to Norman Bethune, a Canadian doctor whom the Chinese revere. But in the beginning, his Western sensibilities were viewed cautiously, he says. He fought against his athletes being overworked. After their success in Turin, he recalls, Chinese officials allowed his team one month off from training.
"I'm like, oh, no," Mr. Wilson recalls. "They need a big break. They need to go and have fun with their families and be stupid. We're still working on that."
As Mr. Wilson learned to work within China's rigid sports regime, he took some lessons that the Canadian system may appreciate. His athletes are paid a salary even at the development level, unburdening them of the stress of finding funding. And their lack of real-world distractions and total obedience may seem incompatible with Canadian values, Mr. Wilson says, but it also helps them succeed.
That's something Mr. Hutchinson agrees with when he looks at the rapid rise of Ms. Liu.
"We could sit here and complain about money," he says, "but I don't think that's the contributing factor. I think the whole thing is, you're bringing in a kid who really can't get into the snowboard scene as far as the culture, because of the language. So it leaves that kid totally to focus on what she's doing."
The Chinese don't attend post-race parties, or talk to other athletes at the top of the pipe, but Mr. Wainwright says that shouldn't be misinterpreted as aloofness or misery.
"They're kids like anyone else and they're out there having a great time," he says. "Birdie is this really sweet girl, quite quiet and a little bashful. But her riding was really strong from the start. You could see she really wanted to do well."
Despite having been on the World Cup circuit for a couple years, the Chinese halfpipe riders remain a mystery. By sticking to the World Cup circuit, Ms. Liu has largely been shielded from Ms. Clark, Hannah Teter, defending Olympic gold medalist, Gretchen Blieler and Torah Bright, the world's best riders who mostly compete in other tours. At Cypress last year, where Ms. Liu took silver, many of those riders said they were curious to see this 5-foot-9 athlete who seemingly came out of nowhere to take the World Cup crown.
While four Chinese women riders are in the top 10 in World Cup standings, their male teammates aren't having the same success, in part because the international talent is so deep on the men's side. Still, with millions of kids to choose from and a program in place, people such as Mr. Hutchinson think it's only a matter of time before Chinese riders begin to rival the likes of Olympic champion Shaun White.
"What China does is they go out and grab the athletes," he says. "What we do in Canada is wait for the kids to come to us, even if that takes years, and you've lost them at the age when you can really start teaching them.
"Now, is that good? Who knows. You don't want little robots. But it depends on what you define as success."
| its an article about how the woman are dominating, quite well, and out of the blue.... overrunning the competition... like an invasion...
the point about the lack of english and difficult names was just a point at about the initial difficulty in training... there was no starting point (well there was it was from 0).. even communication was a task... yet they endured and have come out on top....
its a fucking compliment
.... maybe that blogger and ops lack of english has caused them to overlook this? (and no this isnt a compliment) |
YouTube- Snowboarder Liu Jiayu wraps up from Universal Sports