Chinese rowing first made its mark in 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games when Cao Mianying and Zhang Xiuyun won women's double sculls silver medal. In the following nearly ten years, China has never churned out any Olympic or even world champion.

 

However, China broke the ice by lifting three titles in 2006 worlds and continued to add one gold and eight Olympic berths in the 2007 worlds. Despite that, Chinese rowing is still in predicament in terms of sustainable development.

 

Liu Jian, head coach of Nanjing rowing team, said: "This is well explained when you compare two numbers. China has a population of 1.3 billion, while in contrast, only 2000 people took up rowing. We did make good record on the international arena in 2006 but we should also not neglect the fact that we don't have a sound backup. "

 

During the ongoing 6th Chinese City Games, 441 rowers of 21 teams competed for twelve gold medals on stake.

 

"Only those from the national team caught our eyes," said Liu," They have clear advantage over the rest."

 

Liu also specially tipped women's single sculler Zhu Weiwei, former national team member, as promising.

 

"But she is still young and can not compete against the other national team members." added he.

 

The rest rowers failed to impress Liu.

 

"China only has a total of 2000 rowers at senior and junior levels, each with 1000 people." said Liu, "As the sport is not popular in China, we don't receive much exposure and don't have many amateur rowers."

 

"The expensive equipment is another hurdle between the sport and the public."

 

A singles boat usually costs 140 thousand RMB (about US$18.74 thousand), and a boat for eight is about 400 thousand RMB (about US$53.55 thousand). Even a scull will cost about 10 thousand RMB.

 

"This makes it harder for us to promote the sport. Up to now in China, only several provinces like Guangdong, Jiangsu and Hubei are engaged in it."

 

In China, as water sport centers are usually on the outskirts, water sports are featured with three "isolated", i.e., isolated from home town, from relatives and from cities.

 

Since its unpopularity in China, rowing fails to attract many athletes and sponsors.

 

"Actually most Chinese rowers don't initially take up the sport, they usually start with athletics and swimming. For example, Zhu Weiwei was an athlete." said Wang.

 

"Rowing originated from Europe and it has been part of Europeans' culture and lifestyle, so it's understandable that they have quite a few top rowers." added Wang.

 

"Moreover, we do not have a good knowledge of rowing theories. We need to go to Europe to communicate with German and British rowers. But in fact we don't have many chances for lack of funds."

 

In big contrast, as the Beijing Olympics is approaching, Chinese national rowing team is granted with abundant funds.

 

But will the funds be distributed for regional rowing development after the Games, and will the sport develop sustainably? It's really hard to say.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2007)