Beijing likes to win

Gregory Levey
National Post

Saturday, August 20, 2005

After the Chinese delegation failed to win even one gold medal at the recent World Aquatics Championships in Montreal, rumours began circulating that China is engaged in a shadowy plot to ensure domination at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. According to one theory circulating within the international swimming community, Chinese swimmers who are currently being doped up, and perhaps even genetically modified, are being kept away from competition so that they may avoid being tested. Shortly before the Olympics, the claim has it, they will drop their illegal meds. But by that time, the doping program will have had its muscle-building effect.

John Leonard, head of the American Swimming Coaches Association, has suggested that 50 young Chinese swimmers who disappeared in 2001 and have not been heard from since were essentially kidnapped by the Chinese government and moved to a distant province. There, free from the gaze of swimming's international governing bodies, they are purportedly undergoing a regimen of steroids and experimental genetic procedures. All this is supposedly occurring under the supervision of Professor Helga Pfeiffer, one of the architects of East Germany's illegal doping campaign of the 1970s. A few months before the 2008 Games, these athletes, who have been called the "lost generation of Chinese swimming," are expected to reappear to overwhelm their competitors.

All this may seem impossibly sinister at first, but after a basketball game I witnessed this past June while attending a law-school study-abroad program in Beijing, I'm not so sure. All countries want their athletes to fare well in international competitions. But for the Chinese this goal seems to have become a full-blown obsession.

When the North American law students in my program were challenged to a hoops contest by our Chinese host university, we thought it would be a good way to break down cultural barriers, and we agreed. It would be a friendly game, we figured, followed by drinks and the opportunity to take souvenir photographs. We had no idea that we would find ourselves acting as chess pieces in a Chinese propaganda gambit.

There were about 60 of us on the program from the United States and Canada, and the next day we set about picking our team. None were superstars. Several people had played basketball in high school; some others had played intramural ball in their undergraduate days. That was it.

In all, about 10 people hesitantly agreed to play, most of them reluctantly. The fact was that they were law students -- out of shape from too many hours spent in the library, more familiar with the action in the Supreme Court than on the basketball court. There is a good reason nobody gets athletic scholarships to go to law school.

On the other hand, we all assumed that it didn't really matter; the Chinese law students were sure to be in a similar condition, and maybe nobody would even be keeping score.

But soon after we'd assembled our team, the plan changed: This would not be another law-school team we were playing, but rather our host university's varsity team -- one comprising the best basketball players at one of the biggest universities in China. All of us began to picture an army of Yao Mings playing against a group of future law clerks.

On the day of the game, our bus pulled up to the building that housed the basketball court, and it became immediately clear that this was hardly going to be the low-key pick-up game we'd anticipated. Along the side of the building was a banner stretching a good 20 feet long and standing about five feet high, announcing that Duquesne University (the Pittsburgh-based school that sponsored our program) would be playing the China University of Politics and Law in the STUDENTS' BASKETBALL GAME 2005.

When we walked into the building, we were confronted with another, even larger sign. Along the side of the court, there were about 150 spectators (many of them, for no obvious reason, holding balloons). Also waiting for us was a large scoreboard, a judge's table with three stern-looking officials, and an announcer with a microphone who was yelling things in Chinese and getting the crowd worked up. Beside the Chinese team's bench there was even a group of cheerleaders.
Perhaps the biggest and most disturbing surprise, however, was that waiting for us on the court was a full Chinese TV crew, with a slew of cameras, microphones, and other equipment -- presumably called in to record the great defeat of the Westerners.

After we'd changed into the uniforms provided for us, our opponents appeared, passing the ball between them fluently -- clearly a polished team that had practiced and played together many times.
But this, we soon found out, was not even the varsity team. There had been a slight change of plans, one of our hosts explained to us. In the first half, we would play the junior varsity team. Only in the second half (after our players were already tired) would we go up against the varsity team.

Surprisingly, our team managed to hold its own against the Chinese, despite looking a lot less practiced or graceful. At halftime, we were actually ahead by a few points. But then came the varsity team, and here were the Yao Mings we'd imagined -- muscled behemoths who resembled professional athletes far more than they did students.

Throughout it all, we noticed some odd details -- for instance, that our uniforms were tight, making it hard to breathe; that the intermission had been removed during the second half (to make us more tired?); and that the total game time kept on being extended after we'd pulled ahead. It was hard to say what was merely a local quirk, and what was part of a deliberate effort to make us lose. But it was certainly clear to everyone on my team that the outcome of this surreal match was a matter of great importance to the organizers.

As the game wore on, things got more bizarre. Perhaps the most ridiculous part -- observed by my teammates several times (though only once by me) -- was that the officials would actually change the score on the scoreboard in favor of the Chinese team when it appeared we were distracted.
Could this really be happening, we asked ourselves? Do they want to win that badly?

But despite all these shenanigans, we won anyway. Their players had practiced a lot, and looked good on the court. But they were simply not very good. They departed, the spectators dispersed, and we were left sitting by the side of the court, congratulating ourselves and trying to digest what we'd witnessed.

The footage of the Chinese team's loss never appeared on television, or anywhere else, as far as I could tell -- which is too bad, as I would have loved to have taped it. On the other hand, as one of my classmates pointed out, I might not have recognized the game being broadcast. "They probably would have shown an edited version," she said, "one in which the Chinese team won."