The mellow colors of the gymnasium belie the energy of the gymnasts as they run into a power-packed flip on the sky-blue carpet, fly above the orange vaulting horses, or twist from one pale-blue horizontal bar to another. It's all in a day's work for a striving gymnast, but this is no ordinary gym. The apparatus here is scaled-down - smaller horses, wider balance beams - to compensate for the tiny athletes, aged 4 to 9.

For this is the gymnasium of the Children's Sports School in Xuhui District, Shanghai, the cradle of China's future Olympic gymnasts. Each year, about 150 students are selected, based on physical appearance, from kindergartens in the district. And surprisingly, it helps to be disobedient: "We look for short, slim kids with straight arms, legs and tiny joints. Then we ask the teachers if they are nimble and naughty. Naughty kids are often gifted athletes, since they have extra energy to release," said 53-year-old coach Chen Gexi, a retired gymnast.

About a third of the children selected attend a one-and-a-half-hour preliminary training session to ascertain whether they enjoy the sport and also whether it's acceptable to the parents. Chen calls this their process of "natural selection." He reports that 90 percent of the children who eventually enroll are not Shanghainese. "Shanghai parents want their kids to learn English, painting, or piano - the gentle arts. They don't want their kids to endure any hardships," Chen says.

The 50 trainees spend their summer vacation working. Their day begins at 9:30 a.m., two and a half hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and a deserved nap on the sky-blue tumbling mat in between.

Each morning, coach Lu Di begins the day with what looks like torture of his students. It's something the 24-year-old coach, recently retired from the national team, suffered himself, and is considered the deepest pain suffered in gymnastics. Lu stretches the children's legs for 30 seconds, during which time almost all the kids cry aloud from the pain. "I did too, as a child," recalls Lu.

Yet their hard work is no guarantee of future success - it's a long, hard climb to the dream of a gold medal. Only 10 percent of these little gymnasts will make it to the Shanghai Sports Institute, and just the top students from there will join the Shanghai Sports Working Team, which participates in national competitions, and may even send members to the national team and the Olympics Games. During the past half century, only three international competition gold medalists were from Shanghai.

"After training and growth, if someone turns out to be unsuited to gymnastics - in Ye's case, he's simply growing too big - we will suggest a transfer to another sport, something where the gymnastics training will benefit him, like diving or acrobatics," said Lu, pointing out that Fu Mingxia, Olympic diving champion, started out as a gymnast.

"There are other uncertainties that determine the fate of a gymnast: whether the coach likes your style and the injuries you sustain," added Lu, whose early retirement from the national team two years ago was due to a serious shoulder injury.

For some parents, though, the gymnastics training has already brought rewards. As 5-year-old Zhu Xiaoling makes a perfect arc while swinging under a parallel bar, it's impossible to tell that she had a lymph tumor for which she underwent surgery at the tender age of 2.

"After the surgery, she became very weak and often caught cold from other kids in kindergarten. But after practicing here for a year, although her hands are callused, she is seldom ill," said Xi, the girl's mother. "Sometimes the hardships of training make her cry, but when she turns a perfect somersault to the envy of her friends, all those hardships vanish."

So even the little ones who don't make it will find that gymnastics has enriched their lives, said coach Chen.

(Eastday.com 08/13/2001)