Team USA looks to East for triumphant Olympic venture

Team USA has adopted a venture capitalist approach to improve underperforming Olympic sports by looking to see what it can learn from China in a bid to top the gold count again next summer, USOC Chief of Sport Performance Steven Roush said Thursday.

"What we've done is look at China and, similar to their 119 project, look at ways of diversifying where our medals come from, not just relying on swimming and track and field for the bulk of our success," he told China Daily while in Beijing ahead of next week's Olympic chefs de mission meeting here.

"We've gone into this with a venture capitalist approach to sports in which we have not excelled in the past," he said, citing table tennis, smaller rowing classes, fencing and canoeing as examples of unexploited areas featuring "multiple medal opportunities."

At the 2004 Athens Games, the US edged China by three golds to rank first overall with 35, but at last year's world championships the US ranked second in the cumulative medal count, with 36 to China's 43. Russia was a close third with 35.

According to Chinese migr and Olympic veteran Gao Jun, "it is impossible" to be as successful at table tennis in the US as it is in China because of the way the sport is organized and the lack of facilities and competition there.

"I cannot push myself in the US," the current world No 16 told China Daily. Gao won silver in the doubles event at the 1992 Games for China but has been luckless for her adopted country at the past two. She now trains and studies back in Shanghai.

Roush thinks seeking out financial bids from domestic sports federations will help affect change.

"We have gone to the sports federations and we've said, 'If we are going to invest half a million dollars more than usual, what impact would it have? Here is a pool of money, sell us on your plan and your athletes, and how a bigger investment by the US would result in better results for you'."

This is not dramatically different from China's 119 project, the scheme that refers to the total number of gold medals at the last Olympics in swimming, canoeing and athletics.

It was described on Wednesday by Chinese Olympic Vice-Chairman Cui Dalin as a failure.

"We have made very few improvements," Cui said. It is not realistic to predict that China will overtake the US in the medal rankings next year as it has already squeezed most of the juice out of those sports in which it excels, he added.

On February 21, the British Olympic Association published a report claiming that, if the Olympics had been held that month, China would have topped the gold medal count by 11, based on the results of international competitions.

USOC plans to send a team of about 600 athletes next year, slightly more than China's anticipated squad, and does not expect environmental issues like air pollution or traffic congestion to disadvantage it.

The same cannot be said of the hosts' home advantage. With Chinese shooters already installed at the Olympic shooting hall in Beijing, local athletes' superior familiarity with the site of competition haunts the USOC chief.

"It's one of the things that keeps me up at night," he said.

Roush said that stiff competition from China and Russia had forced Team USA to re-examine its methodology and look widely outside its borders for inspiration, whereas before it had stuck to tried and tested methods.

Now China and the US are regularly dipping into each other's pockets for ideas, he said.

"I think what you'll end up having in a few short years is, you'll have trouble telling one system from the other."

But with China importing more foreigners to train its own coaches, thus creating a "trickle-down effect" of talent, its economic rise only further fueling its sports federations (which are supported by the government, unlike in the US), and a population of 1.3 billion at its disposal, the future looks daunting.

"I think that they will only build on the successes of 2008," said Roush.

"This is not going to be a one-hit wonder, where they come in as the host and do exceptionally well. I think they will be the sports superpower for decades to come.

"You're not going to see the impact (of all this investment in its systems) until 2012, 2016 or 2020," he said, adding that the same logic applied to Russia.

(China Daily 08/03/2007 page22)