Hotfooting It After a Dream

A little girl's 55-day run across China sums up the nation's hopes -- and some suggest loss of perspective -- ahead of the 2008 Olympics.

BEIJING, Aug. 28 -- In a country eagerly preparing to host next summer's Olympic Games, little Zhang Huimin seemed destined to become an early champion for the Chinese public.

The slight 8-year-old, 44 pounds and just over 4 feet tall, jogged into Beijing under a media spotlight Sunday after running nearly the length of China. Zhang had started out on Hainan Island, just off the country's southern rim, and covered 2,212 miles in 55 days without a whimper, her father bragged. That, he pointed out, was more than an Olympic marathon every day.

The girl, whose spindly legs and knobby knees gave no hint of such stamina, appeared to embody the come-from-behind determination of many Chinese to see their country win big at the Beijing Games. To realize that ambition, thousands of Chinese youths have been training for years -- many since they were as young as Zhang -- in rigorous government programs that turn out world-class divers, gymnasts and sprinters.

But national pride notwithstanding, Zhang's feat and the relentless training regimen that made it possible had by Tuesday generated an unexpected burst of criticism from sports professionals and ordinary Chinese, who accused the girl's father of taking things too far. Even for a nation thirsting for Olympic glory and recognition, winning cannot be everything, critics said.

"It is an extremely hard running process, even for an adult," Liu Hong, director of the China School Sports Federation, told the official China Daily newspaper. "The running will certainly harm her."

Liu Min, a newspaper commentator, wrote that both sports experts and ordinary people along the route had urged the father, Zhang Jianmin, to stop the run. At one point, a newspaper reported, Zhang turned off his cellphone to avoid the criticism as he rode behind his daughter on a motorized bicycle.

Zhang said his daughter joined him on the bike only twice for brief moments along the way, both times because of obstacles in the road. Although the proud father's word was the main source of the girl's exploit, her run was promoted by various sponsors and tracked by local news media over the past eight weeks.

"She didn't stop for one minute," Liu wrote on the sina.com Internet portal. "She paid no attention to the blisters on her feet and the continuous cough. How can this be called the spirit of the Olympics?"

Many commentators accused the father of exploiting his daughter for gain. The run was sponsored by several sports gear companies, they noted, speculating that the girl might have been pushed to fulfill their advertising goals.

"She is just too young," an Internet contributor from Suzhou wrote. "How stone-hearted the father is."

In a round of interviews Monday in Beijing, Zhang Jianmin said his daughter has been running two miles a day since she was 3 years old and 15 miles a day since she was 7, seeming to enjoy it as a game. His ambition for her, he added, is winning an Olympic gold medal by the 2016 games, when she will be 16.

Addressed directly by reporters, the girl said running makes her happy. Prodded, she named three prominent Chinese athletes as her models, including the 5,000-meter Olympic gold medalist Wang Junxia, the 110-meter hurdles champion Liu Xiang and the 2007 women's London Marathon winner, Zhou Chunxiu.

"I want to be a champion, too," she said.

Some commentators criticized the state-sponsored culture of intensive Olympics-oriented training, calling Zhang Jianmin just an extreme example of what the government has been promoting in its own sports programs.

"A group of madmen intend to use the Olympics to achieve their own purpose," one commentator wrote, taking advantage of the Internet's relative anonymity. "Such behavior is not needed to welcome the Olympics. Look at the miserable faces of Chinese children training for gymnastics. What is the image of Chinese sports?"

But others endorsed the extreme training Zhang Jianmin put his daughter through, saying that is how champions are made.

"Which country would reject the temptation of more gold medals?" asked an enthusiast in Shandong province. "Championships cannot be won without arduous training."