The People's Republic of China used to be called Red China. And deservedly so. They should be red-faced with shame over how they treat masters track! With 1.3 billion people and a booming economy, you'd expect their masters track movement to be going gangbusters. But nope. How many masters meets does the PRC hold every year? Just one. Incredible but true, according to a source who gave me some insights on the PRC from his Hong Kong perch. I devoted my MAD blog this week to that subject, and I'm reprinting it here -- along with some clickable links.
Beijing has closed the books on the most fantabulous Olympics in history, with the hosts winning 100 medals -- 51 of them gold. No surprise, since 1.3 billion people provide a pretty good talent pool. So how many gold medals did the People's Republic of China win at the World Masters Athletics Indoor Championships last March in Clermont-Ferrand, France?
Try zero.
Not a single PRC athlete competed in France.
In September 2007, a handful of PRC athletes were at the World Masters outdoor championships in Riccione, Italy. But meet results indicate that some of them were DNS (for "did not start"), suggesting that they had entered and not competed.
Of course, Hong Kong sent athletes to France (and the 2007 outdoor worlds in Italy). But that's a different story, given its special status in the "one country, two systems" policy that prevails for the former British colony.
This is odd. Doesn't China revere its elderly? Well, yes. But when it comes to Masters track, China is barely a blip on the world scene. Part of this is due to severe restrictions on travel outside the PRC.
According to Henley & Partners, which publishes a Visa Restrictions Index, "PRC citizens enjoy visa-free access to 19 countries and territories for short-term tourism visits. The PRC is ranked 78th out of 83 in terms of international travel freedom, which is one of the lowest scores in the study."
But what about Masters track within China? Don't millions compete at all ages?
For those answers, I wrote a Masters friend in Hong Kong.
A British expatriate who prefers to go unidentified, my friend replied:
"China holds a single vets track meet, the national championships, every year. This meager veterans activity, and their occasional forays to international meets, are organized by the same CAAA that manages (Olympic champion hurdler) Liu Xiang et al. Just as among the elite, the teams are organized on a provincial basis, and organizing the meet rotates around among the different provinces.
"This year's meet will be in Tangshan, Hebei, Oct. 9-13. The Communist Party is very nervous of any mass activity not organized by themselves. (This is basically the entire case against the Falun Gong.) As a result, China has virtually no amateur sports. In athletics, anyone other than the CAAA trying to organize a meet, or even a road race, would run into problems.
"China produced its 100 Olympic medals using its version of the old USSR sports machine. Athletes start young and move up through part-time sports schools, provincial sports schools and then the national team. Along the way, they don't get much education, so one feature of the system has been jobs for life for the vast, uneducated majority who don't make it to the top.
"They become coaches and administrators in local part-time sports schools. The provincial teams for the national vets meet are made up almost entirely of such failed athletes and their families. They were good in their prime, but have been languishing in obscurity, smoking and training not at all ever since. The standard is not high.
"Unlike Hong Kong, China athletes who go to overseas veterans meets have all their expenses paid. Unlike Taiwan, they don't have to compete for the selections. It's mostly based on connections."
It's a whole lot easier for foreigners to compete in China's Masters nationals, however. And I've reported over the years on how athletes from America and Australia did at the China championships.
One was Thierry Boucquey, a French Professor at Scripps College (at California's Claremont University), who ran sprints at the Chinese Masters nationals in 2005 and surveyed athletes in other cities as well.
In June 2005, Thierry wrote me: "I can tell you that I interviewed and polled 160 Chinese Masters in five cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Jinan and Dongying. I met with probably double that. I trained at excellent university facilities in all of these cities.
"All had an all-weather Tartan surface. Additionally, the infield of every track was covered by first rate artificial turf, which was nearly as soft as grass, and a pleasure to run on. Everywhere, people were exceedingly friendly and quite frankly very surprised to be the subject of a foreign researcher's study."
He said China's 2005 Masters meet was held in Dongying in Shangdong Province and attracted 600 athletes. But Boucquey bettered all the sprinters in his M50 age group with a 12.23 in the 100-meter dash. That time would have barely made the finals in his age group at the USATF Masters nationals this month in Spokane.
In 2002, China hosted the biennial Asian Masters Athletics Championships in Dalian. But the best athletes were from Japan, which holds the vast majority of Asian Masters track and field records.
In May 2007, M50 runner Robert Herd of Australia and his wife, Denise, joined a Hong Kong contingent and traveled thousands of miles to Hangzhou to compete in the All-China National Veterans Athletics Championships -- the country's Masters nationals.
After his return home, he posted an 1,800-word yarn of his experience in China. Among his revelations: "In the 1500, where you run mainly in lanes 1 and 2, people stood on the inside of the track and in lane 3 and outwards all around the track and cheered and clapped and took photographs."
He also wrote:
"I had attempted to enter as an independent athlete and being Australian, rather than of Chinese citizenship, had hoped to be accepted to participate but did not expect to be eligible for any medal should I run well. We walked into the official's room only to be greeted by heated argument in Chinese between the organisers. We retreated but were soon beckoned into the room and made welcome. . . . Eventually we sorted out that they had indeed received my entry but thought it would be too confusing for others if I competed as an independent so put me in the Hong Kong team. This proved to be a fortuitous decision for me because I was already coming to feel like part of their team. The only two other athletes present of European descent were from Hong Kong and everyone else seemed to expect that a red-haired non-Chinese speaking athlete had to be from Hong Kong."
At the meet, he wrote, "The local army brass band emerged from under the grandstand and played stirring music. The Chinese flag was raised accompanied by their National anthem. Speeches followed introducing local Communist Party officials, the event organisers and the chief officials, following by proclamation opening the competition.
"First event was the 100m, heats followed immediately by finals. Some quite good sprinters and plenty of enthusiastic participation by the rest, many running without spikes, not familiar with starting blocks, lots of false starts got away with. Didn't matter, the good runners won and got medals, the others had fun just being in it."
Robert Herd went home with "a very big bronze medal and two very nice certificates."
He concluded: "Both my performances had bettered the Chinese Grade 1 Standards for these distances, so I was also given a certificate and pin recognising this. But the biggest reward was just participating. So much enthusiasm and so many happy faces made this a really great event to be part of."
Such a shame that China doesn't make it easy for its own citizens to join in the fun.
