Nationalized Sports

• Setting the Chinese sports program in motion, the 1978 reforms called for massive nationwide expenditure on developing elite athletes modeled on the Soviet system. What followed were immediate successes on the world stage.
  
  

Sports Schools

• More than 30 years after its initiation, the Chinese sports reformation of 1978 remains solid. Over 400,000 students attend 3,000 sports schools that produce 100,000 trained athletes each year whose job it is to bring athletic glory to China. In preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China's youngest athletes began training more than a dozen years earlier, at age 4, at the many government run sports schools. The boarding schools purpose is to choose future athletes and weed out the weak.
  
  "Our job is to push these kids to their limits, so they can perform gloriously for our nation," says Yang Yaojun, gymnastics coach at Weilun Sports School in Guangdong province. The Chinese government spends large sums on athletes' salaries and on sports schools. According to a report by National Public Radio, under the current Chinese General Administration's estimates, each Olympic gold medal cost Beijing about $7 million.
  
  

Competitive Sports Legacy

• In 1979, Wu Shude won China's first gold metal in international competition at the World Weightlifting Championship in Greece. Yang Wenyi broke the 50-meter freestyle world record in 1988---China's first recognized international record. By 1990, the Chinese team took 60 percent of the gold medals in Beijing at the 11th Asian Games.
  
  

Olympic History

• In 1979, China rejoined the International Olympic Committee and in the 1984 Olympics, Chinese athletes won 15 gold metals and ranked fourth. In 2008, China hosted the Olympics in Beijing. To prepare for the 2008 Olympics and win the most gold medals on home turf, the Chinese targeted lesser-known sports like canoeing and kayaking, with 48 available medals to bolster their standings. China was first in gold medal standings with 51 and second overall (behind the United States) with a total medal count of 100. Controversy arose over the ages of the women's gymnastic team, resulting in a forfeit of their gold medal.
  
  

Spectator Sports

• Soccer (football), around since the early 1900s, has the largest fan base, but had yet to win on the world stage by 2009. The men's national team is ranked 87th for 2010, while the women's team is 13th. FIFA awarded the Chinese football program its Development Award for 2009 for its efforts to promote and upgrade the program.
  
  Chinese Basketball Association (CBA)---China's top professional league, formed in 1995---taps athletes like Yao Ming from the nation's sports schools. The sport leaped in popularity after Ming joined the Houston Rockets in 2002.