Do China have an unfair advantage?

baldrick

Chinese athletes are dominating in London but does there come a point where you have to question a nation's eligibility to participate? China identifies children with even the merest hint of potential and whisks them off to state run training facilities where they will train relentlessly day after day, year after year.

Is this fair? How do you balance the playing field so that counties who don't ship 6 and 7 year olds  off to training academies can stand a chance  of competing?

Matt_C

Nothing to stop any other country doing this, including England. Well, apart from laziness....

leeince

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2182127/How-China-trains-children-win-gold--standing-girls-legs-young-boys-hang-bars.html

Trollslayer

China has a lot more peopel to choose from, that is an advantage.

baldrick

I would be a little upset if someone whisked my son off to a training academy on the other side of the country at 6 years old where they will train all day every day potentially to the detriment of anything else....

Heroik

There is nothing "unfair" about this.

The question should be is it right or good practise for the children to be disposed to this at such a young age?

Steven

Unless people are being pumped full of drugs nobody has a right anywhere to question somebody for simply being better. Some parents in this country choose to send their children off to school and only see them every other weekend. Life is about choices

nheather

Not unfair, but from what I've seen in some reports and documentaries I do question the humanity of it.

Potential youngsters are taken away from their homes, barely ever seeing their family for years on end.  The training schedule is brutal.  They get a better lifestyle (in terms of money, housing etc.)  than they may have as farmers but it is nothing special.  Success is expected and failure is punished.

So from a sport point of view it trains very good athletes, and I don't believe they are on, or need, performance enhancing drugs.  But from a humanity point of view I think their treatment borders on immoral.

No doubt it gets results.  

In the 1930's Stalin used a method to improve the efficiency of miners.  He got one of the most experienced miners and gave him a good seam to work on.  His daily output was then set as the measure for all miners.  If they didn't deliver as much then their pay would be docked according to the shortfall.  Of course they didn't have good seams or the best equipment.  The result is that they worked their socks off, production increased but they still didn't meet the targets so employment cost fell.

You could say that is an excellent way to do business - increased output for less cost - every company's dream, but is it right to do such a thing?

Cheers,

Nigel

baldrick

Surely though if the means by which you achieve your goals are unethical or immoral then you have an unfair advantage over those that are not prepared to take the same actions.

I am by no means saying that the Chinese athletes aren't phenomenal but from the point of view of America, the UK and France competing against China, the latter has an unfair advantage!

nheather

You could look at it that way, but you would have to say that the USA has an even bigger advantage over other teams with the amount of money they can throw into training, equipment, research etc.

Personally, I would have to seperate the two issues.  

Does China have an unfair advantage at Sport? - no, they are using the methods and resources that they have available to them just as the USA are.

Is the treatment of young athletes ethical and moral? - probably not.

Cheers,

Nigel