NEW DELHI: Chinese athletes have always been a mystery to the rest of the world. Others see them winning medals and tend to believe that every Chinese athlete goes through inhuman training methods on their way to glory.
"Not true," Wang Liang, Chinese head shooting coach, is quick to clear the notion.
There have been reports of Chinese athletes not being able to meet their family for months before important competitions, but Liang said that is by choice and not by force.
"China is big, like India, and our team normally trains in Beijing. Most of the athletes are not from Beijing, and come from far-off places and villages, hence it isn't easy to meet their family," he said. "Some athletes start at a young age, so they don't go home... rather their parents come to meet them. As their parents also have their own jobs, it gets difficult to plan meetings regularly.
"Normally they start at around 11 or 12 years at the shooting schools in cities and then if they are good at it and start winning medals in the competition at the provincial level, they participate at the national competition. The national medallists then come to the national team."
Liang also busts the myth that Chinese shooters are mentally quite tough and don't show their emotions.
On the contrary, the head coach felt the Chinese shooters are as vulnerable like any other.
"They are not robots. Not all Chinese shooters are mentally strong. Most of them have their own problems.. they are human beings. When they don't shoot good, they cry and try to find help and we try to help them as much as possible," said Liang.
Talking about the secret of their high-ratio success, Liang argued that it isn't a result of lack of emotions, but due to more practice.
"The difference between Chinese shooting and the rest of the world is that we put more energy and effort into our training," he said. "Our shooters score way more in training than they shoot in the competitions while others put in more effort in competitions. The scores are bound to go down in competitions, so if the shooter consistently scores high in training, they have a better chance to score more than others (in competitions)," he said. "For example, if Sheng Lihao shot the world record score of 637.9 in a competition last year, he had scored 639-plus scores many times in the training before and even now."
Liang also said that language barrier also has contributed to the misinterpretation of Chinese athletes' image. He said they are not quiet, but struggle to communicate.
"Since conversations mostly happen in English, they are not able to talk with other athletes. Most of them don't speak English at all."
