"I thought I should have concentrated on training. But at my age, I also wanted to have a baby," Qi said. "Everybody respects my decision."

Knowing that I was probably wondering if she would still be in good condition for the Games, Qi said, "I plan to resume training after the middle of next year. It would be hard for me to predict if I'd be able to qualify, not to mention win a medal there. A dozen other good athletes are also training for the event. But I think I'll try my best."

Qi, 32, who was selected to be a torch-bearer during the Athens Olympic torch relay in 2004 in Beijing, had been widely expected to be one of China's best hopes for a Paralympic gold medal in 2008.

A paraplegic athlete who was injured while training in her freshman year in university, Qi had taken up wheelchair fencing for fun at first. But since she had been doing extremely well in the sport, she said the fun had brought responsibilities and pressures.

In a society where people usually emphasize achievement and sacrifice more than individual, all-round human development, such responsibilities and pressures can be overwhelming.

For example, an Asian Games table tennis double gold medalist was kept from knowing about his mother's death until after the competition was over. Another Chinese teenager had to learn from journalists that her father had died of cancer before an event in which she won a world table tennis championship.

Zhong Bingshu, a professor from the Sports University of Beijing, who cited the athletes' experiences in his paper at a recent Olympic education seminar, wondered if while encouraging athletes to make sacrifices, people should also give them more "humanistic care"? His paper was titled "The Call of Humanistic Care and Significance of the People's Olympics."

Qi had gone through tough and even cruel training to be a top wheelchair fencer. But she said her baby and family, as well as a gold medal and career were all important to her. By deciding to be a mother, she wants to pursue an ideal Chinese life that should be about the true, the good and the beautiful, or harmony between one and nature, one and others, and one with oneself.

So what about the gold medal? Pierre de Coubetin, founder of the modern Olympic Movement, has put it very nicely: "The important thing in life is not victory but struggle; the important thing is not to have won but to have fought well."

It's heartening to see that Qi's determination to be herself and to seek a way of life based on the joy of effort is supported by everybody else.

(China Daily 09/22/2006 page5)