Sports / China

Romance in sports - Good or bad for athletes?

By Coldness Kwan (Chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-01-09 16:05

Sports, if linked with romance in one way or another, is widely open to
public conversation. It is becoming increasingly hard to tell if an
athlete becomes famous for his or her skills or because of his or her
personal life.

Romances among teammates are nothing new, but a coach and athlete couple
is rare. China's top tennis player Li Na, and her tennis-playing husband
cum coach have created a precedent in China.

Jiang's official appointment by the China Tennis Association (CTA),
China's tennis sport administrator, was in an effort to bolster Li's
"weak mentality" to boost the nation's hope of singles gold in 2008.

Li Na and Jiang Shan

But public opinion on the appointment is divided. .

A tennis expert said family links between tennis coaches and athletes
benefits the athletes as it is easy for them to communicate with their
coaches both during training and in normal life. Russian tennis star
Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena are coached by
their fathers.

Others argue that a husband and wife partnership may form a tight circle
that excludes the other team members, making it difficult for them to
function as a solid whole.

Whether the controversial appointment will pay off or not is not yet
known. But romantic associations have already had different ramifications
in Chinese sports.

There have been many couples on the national badminton team, but the team
has never lost their dominant position on the world stage. The team
produced retired champions Sun Jun and Ge Fei, already married and
serving champions Lin Dan and Xie Xingfan with Lin and Xie as the reining
world No.1 and No.2.

Lin Dan and Xie Xingfang

"If romance can motivate our top athletes but does not negatively impact
their normal lives and training, or on their taking home gold, as their
coach, I can't find any reason to oppose these couples," said Li Yongbo,
chief team coach.

Compared with the romance-friendly badminton team, the table tennis team,
another gold medal team, is not that tolerant. Two women members were
sent back to their provincial team for having relationships with top men
players in 2004 so the men could concentrate on preparing for the 2004
Olympics.

Liu Guoliang, chief coach of the men's team and former World and Olympic
champion and his then-girlfriend Wang Jin, also a player, were separated
when Wang was taken off the national team in 1995. The couple married ten
years later in 2005.

Both the tennis and badminton team have similar aims, to help their
athletes play their best in 2008, even though they both have different
methods of dealing with athletes' romance.

Unlike individual sports, playing in pairs provides an atmosphere where
it is easy for romance to bloom. In pair figure skating, the skater's
dance is suggestive of a romance between the two.

Zhao Hongbo and Shen Xue

China's top pair Shen Xue, 28 and Zhao Hongbo, 33, two-time world
champions and Turin bronze medalists and rising stars Tong Jian and Pang
Qing, 2006 World champions have announced their relationships off the ice.

Youngsters Zhang Hao, 21 and Zhang Dan, 20, Turin silver medalists gave
an excuse of still being small when asked if they are romantically linked.

Do they truly have emotions towards each other? At least they have to
foster attachments and compacts in order to be a skating pair.

Athletes are humans, and they need romance just like the rest of us. But
they are not quite ordinary people, so maybe their romances need to be
unusual as well, romances that motivate them to defend the nation's honor.

To contact the writer of this story:
Guan Xiaomeng in Beijing at guanxm@chinadaily.com.cn

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