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jimnyc
08-01-2012, 01:51 PM
I'm sorry, this is just wrong. What's more important, sports or family? And I can see if it happened a couple of days ago and they were withholding until after the event, but this was a few YEARS. These people are sick how they place training for the Olympics THE most important thing in life.


LONDON – Chinese diver Wu Minxia's celebrations at winning a third Olympic gold medal were cut short after her family revealed the details of a devastating secret they had kept for several years.

Wu's parents decided to withhold news of both the death of her grandparents and of her mother's long battle with breast cancer until after she won the 3-meter springboard in London so as to not interfere with her diving career.

"It was essential to tell this white lie," said her father Wu Yuming.

The story of Wu's family secret has generated huge discussion in China, where the pursuit of success has been chased by the government-backed sports national sports program with unshakeable zeal over the past two decades.

Now there seems to be a backlash against the win-at-all-costs mentality after the revelations about Wu followed fierce criticism from a national newspaper when a 17-year-old weightlifter failed to medal.

In China, athletes are often taken away from their families at a young age and placed in specialist training schools where they practice for hours every day. Wu began training daily at a diving camp at the age of 6. By the time she was 16, she had left home to be installed in a government aquatic sports institute.

She has become one of her sport's all-time greats, but her father says the success has come at a high price to her personal life.

"We accepted a long time ago that she doesn't belong entirely to us," Wu Yuming told the Shanghai Morning Post. "I don't even dare to think about things like enjoying family happiness."

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics--family-kept-grandparents--deaths-secret-from-chinese-diver-until-she-won-gold-medal.html;_ylt=Aky3VhV0SCXjVTfSWUl1ppBNAuh_;_ylu= X3oDMTQ4YXAwMDB2BG1pdANGRUFUVVJFRCBNZWdhdHJvbiBPbH ltcGljcyBIb21lBHBrZwM2YzEzYjAzZS1jZDVlLTMzNGMtODIy Ny1iNjc3OTEwN2M4MWYEcG9zAzIEc2VjA21lZ2F0cm9uBHZlcg NlZWVjNzI2My1kYmYxLTExZTEtYWNiNS1mYzVlYmNiYzY0ZGQ-;_ylg=X3oDMTE2Z2ppM3RwBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRw c3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAMEcHQD;_ylv=3

fj1200
08-01-2012, 01:53 PM
Years? Holy crap.

jimnyc
08-01-2012, 01:59 PM
Years? Holy crap.

"Ying, now that you've won that gold medal... Do you remember that little sister you used to have...?"

Abbey Marie
08-01-2012, 02:11 PM
Craziness just to win.

Speaking of which, do you think the Chinese swimmer Ye was doping?

jimnyc
08-01-2012, 02:17 PM
Craziness just to win.

Speaking of which, do you think the Chinese swimmer Ye was doping?

I read an unofficial site that said her tests came back clean, but I've never seen them get results that fast before. My initial instinct is hell yeah, she not only started as fast as the men, but she finished as fast as Ryan Lochte! I'm not saying women can't beat men, but it's certainly less likely to happen at this level. And when these athletes beat records, whether others or their own, its usually in the hundredths of seconds, or at most a second, or miraculously 2 seconds. She beat her own record by 5 seconds, which was only earlier this year. That's an awful lot of time to have made up! But without facts and the tests, we can only guess.

jimnyc
08-01-2012, 02:17 PM
I just found this too, maybe she is clean after all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19062639

Abbey Marie
08-01-2012, 02:26 PM
I just found this too, maybe she is clean after all.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19062639

I'd always heard that the dopers tend to come up with as-yet undetectable substances. And we know the Chinese have cheated in the past. Just sayin.

If she is clean, it's a shame to have this pall cast over her medal.