Taiwan Today

The government is making great efforts to help athletes prepare for the London Olympics as well as cultivate the sports stars of tomorrow.

Scrapes and heavy calluses on the palms of 21-year-old Hsu Shu-ching (許淑淨) are signs of her countless training sessions since she first began participating in the sport of weightlifting in middle school. As an Olympic hopeful, Hsu has spent an average of six to seven hours per day working out and has had very few days off for the past two years. During the Lunar New Year holiday this January, for example, Hsu and other weightlifting team members went home for only one family dinner and immediately returned to training the very next day.

Hsu is not bothered by having almost no time to engage in leisure activities, however, nor is she concerned about the abrasions on her hands. Now a college student in her junior year, Hsu has spent most of her time through high school and college living and training at the National Sports Training Center (NSTC) in Zuoying District, Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan, always preparing for the next international competition on the agenda.

“I’ll be happy as long as I can make my personal best lift [at the Olympics],” she says with a big smile. To prepare for her first Olympiad, the summer games that will run from the end of this month until mid-August in London, Hsu says that she has enhanced her technical skills and tried to build her strength to the optimal level.

To perform and shine in the Olympic arena is a dream shared by Hsu and many of the athletes who have trained for years at the NSTC, the country’s leading facility for sportsmen and women preparing for international events. The Cabinet-level Sports Affairs Council (SAC) estimates some 40 Taiwanese athletes will participate at this year’s Olympics in sports such as archery, cycling, fencing, rifle shooting, table tennis, taekwondo, swimming, track and field, weightlifting and windsurfing.

Among these categories, Chiu Ping-kun (邱炳坤), director of National Taiwan Sport University’s Graduate Institute of Coaching Science, considers Taiwan’s Olympic team most likely to take medals in archery, taekwondo and weightlifting. The team will compete under the name Chinese Taipei. “We’ve been in the top eight [countries] in these sports at every Olympic Games since 1988,” says Chiu, who is also the secretary-general of the Chinese Taipei Archery Association and competed in the sport at the 1988 Summer Olympiad in Seoul. “That indicates that we have stable performances in these sports and Taiwan has cultivated some very competitive athletes in these areas.”

Nevertheless, winning Olympic medals remains a daunting task for most local competitors. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Taiwan sent 80 athletes in 15 sports, but earned only four bronze medals. The country has taken a total of just 19 Olympic medals to date—16 for individual and three for team sports—despite the handsome cash prizes the government offers to Olympic medalists. Currently, winners of Olympic gold, silver and bronze are eligible for rewards of NT$12 million, $7 million and $5 million (US$400,000, $233,000 and $167,000) respectively. Alternatively, they can choose to collect the money as a monthly stipend of NT$75,000, $38,000 and $24,000 (US$2,500, $1,300 and $800) for the rest of their lives.

Chiu believes the country’s comparatively small medal haul has to do with the lower priority placed on sports in Taiwanese culture. “You seldom hear parents encourage their children to play sport more,” Chiu says. “[In general,] sport is not considered something one can make a living from.” Wang Yu-bin (王裕斌), an archery coach at a high school in Taitung, eastern Taiwan and the head coach of Taiwan’s Olympic archery team, points out that the two main career options for retired athletes are becoming a coach or a physical education school teacher, but the number of positions for both are quite limited in light of Taiwan’s low birthrate. Even during the years they are competing, Wang says, most athletes struggle to find sponsorship to cover their expenses. “The concept of funding athletes has yet to find widespread acceptance among enterprises in Taiwan,” Wang says.

Chiu agrees, explaining that this may have something to do with Taiwan’s economic structure. He says that most big companies in Taiwan produce components or finished products for corporations abroad. Since they do not sell merchandise under their brand name, by and large, local companies are less enthusiastic about sponsoring athletes as it does very little to drive their sales or boost their corporate image. Under such circumstances, Chiu says, the government should shoulder more responsibility when it comes to funding athletes.

As a former track-and-field competitor, SAC Minister Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) is well aware of the challenges faced by local athletes. She believes the government needs to focus more on producing a wider variety of sports-related jobs by expanding Taiwan’s sports industry, a term that encompasses all businesses providing sports-related goods and services. Pointing to the promulgation of the Sports Industry Development Act in March this year, Tai says the law is especially important as it serves as a legal basis for the government to offer athletes favorable interest rates on loans to start a sports-related business. Tai says qualified athletes are entitled to receive a loan of up to NT$5 million for a maximum of 10 years at interest rates of around 1.5 percent. The SAC will also act as the guarantor for all qualified applicants and even pay the interest for selected athletes, she adds.

Tax Breaks for Sponsors

In addition, the newly implemented law plays an important role in encouraging corporate sponsorship by offering tax incentives, according to the minister. “The law allows all donations and sponsorships made by enterprises to be listed among their expenses for the year,” she says. “There’s no upper limit on the amount of money that can be included as an expense.”

Tai also points to an SAC program that aims to promote the development of the sports industry, while encouraging patients to improve their health through exercise. Since 2010, the council has offered subsidies of up to NT$5,000 (US$167) every three years to those with a doctor’s recommendation to start exercising. The program targets seven types of chronic ailments including stroke, depression, degenerative arthritis and cardiovascular illnesses, and is available at selected fitness centers. “Once they realize that doing exercise can improve their health, it becomes easy to get them into the habit of regular exercise,” Tai says, adding that so far, some 1,400 citizens have received such benefits.

To cultivate more high-profile athletic competitors, Tai says the SAC’s top priority is to attract and develop sports talent at the grassroots level. “We estimate that it takes at least eight to 12 years of training for an athlete to be able to compete at an international level,” she explains. “If our policy focuses only on training elite sportsmen, we’ll always have to count on good luck to find our next top athlete.” For this reason, Tai says, in 2010, the SAC began to earmark some NT$200 million (US$6.67 million) every year as financial aid for student athletes from primary school to college who receive training in dozens of state-backed athletic training centers around the country. These facilities have operated as part of primary and secondary schools for years, but, according to Tai, the resources available to them were scarce. Under the new program, a qualified college student, for example, can receive a maximum of NT$30,000 (US$1,000) per semester to help cover tuition charges and a maximum of NT$15,000 (US$500) per month for living expenses, in addition to a monthly subsidy totaling NT$4,250 (US$142) for academic assistance and career counseling. By shouldering some of the cost of young athletes’ education and everyday life, Tai says, “the initiative can help ease the concerns of worried parents and further encourage students to participate in sports.”

Tai explains that the government support is mostly directed to amateur athletes as a way to help them find and develop their talents in sports early on in life. If they turn professional, athletes become responsible for finding their own financial support because being a professional athlete is a personal career choice just like any other job.

Originally the Olympic Games were intended for amateur athletes, but the restriction was lifted after the International Olympic Committee voted in 1986 to allow professionals to compete. According to Wang Yu-bin, although Taiwan’s Olympic team trains at a professional level, most of the athletes this year are considered amateurs, with many of them full-time students. The few local professionals vying for Olympic medals in London include tennis player Rendy Lu (盧彥勳) and cyclist Hsiao Mei-yu (蕭美玉). Taiwanese professional golf star Yani Tseng (曾雅妮) will be able to compete for Taiwan at the 2016 Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, when golf will make its first appearance as an official Olympic sport.

Wang Han-chung (王漢忠), director of the NSTC, has high hopes for Taiwan to bag more Olympic medals in London than it did in Beijing. “It’s very likely our team can continue the great performance and high morale we got from the latest Asian Games and World University Games at the Olympics,” Wang says, adding that Taiwan brought home a total of 13 gold medals at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, mainland China, the country’s best performance at that event in the previous 10 years.

To prepare for the coming Olympiad, the director says that the NSTC invited nearly 50 specialists to supplement the training and support provided for athletes. Their expertise spans a broad range of disciplines, including diet and nutrition, medicine, physiology, psychology and sports technology. Athletes attend one-on-one counseling sessions on a regular basis to keep in good psychological condition. Every athlete’s physical state is also closely monitored in a daily routine that includes recording body temperature, heart rate and weight.

Final Countdown

The NSTC’s Wang says that the center’s first concern during the 100-day countdown to the opening of the Olympic Games is to prevent athletes from getting injured. “One injury can set back athletes’ progress several months, which would make it hard for them to recover before the games,” the director says. For that reason, he says that the NSTC offers a clinic for sports injury prevention and treatment seven days a week and encourages athletes to stay at the center during holidays by providing entertainment such as karaoke and movies as well as massage services. Athletes are also strongly advised to visit doctors only at the center to prevent them from taking any medication that could trigger a positive drug test result at the Olympics.

As an important part of Taiwan’s preparation heading into the Olympic Games, in late March the SAC took a group of coaches, SAC officials and several experts from the NSTC to visit the event venues in London. The trip, according to Wang Han-chung, provided essential information for coaches to refine their training strategies, a move that could be crucial to Taiwan’s chance of winning medals this summer. For example, the director says, the head cycling coach drove the whole 140-kilometer-long road-cycling route and videotaped the road conditions and surroundings. As a result, the coach can train cyclists on similar terrain and prepare athletes for when to speed up or slow down at certain kilometer marks along the route.

While local hopefuls are getting ready to take their best to the Olympiad, the government is making plans for the 2017 Summer Universiade, or the World University Games, which will take place in Taipei City. “More than 10,000 athletes from some 160 countries are expected to come to Taiwan to participate in the competitions,” the SAC’s Tai explains. “It will be the highest-level and largest multi-sport event Taiwan has ever hosted.” According to the minister, participating in the games will help increase the performance level of local athletes while the event will boost Taiwan’s international profile. Taipei will also renovate a number of old sports facilities and construct several new ones. Tai says when Taipei hosted the Deaflympics in 2009, the city did not have a swimming pool built to international standards, for example, and had to move the swimming events to Hsinchu City, about a 90-minute drive from the capital. “But because of the World University Games, Taipei is slated to have a new international-standard swimming pool, basketball courts and tennis courts,” she says, adding that these venues are not just for one-time use, but will upgrade Taipei’s overall environment for competitive sports and physical fitness.

Facilities aside, NSTC weightlifting coach Tsai Wen-yi (蔡溫義) says self-discipline is the key to being an outstanding athlete. Tsai was the bronze medalist in the men’s 60-kilogram weightlifting event at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympiad and now coaches Olympic competitors Hsu Shu-ching and Huang Shih-hsu (黃釋緒). “They need to set a very high bar for themselves and know how to push themselves to achieve a high standard,” Tsai says. “This not only applies to their training, but also their everyday life,” he says, explaining that all aspects of a great athlete’s lifestyle, including diet, sleep, exercise, health and personal safety, are considered part of the training for competitions, and an athlete has to manage them well.

Nothing Quite Like Winning

Talking about his Olympic experience, Tsai says that when he stepped onto the Olympic podium, the joy he felt was beyond description and he hopes the athletes he coaches can one day experience the same sense of achievement. “I was so happy and thinking, ‘the medal was meant to be mine,’” he recalls. “It was because I knew how many sacrifices I’d made and how much practice I’d done. Because I did something others can’t do, I felt I deserved to be standing there,” he continues. “I realized how much I’d wanted [the medal] and it was a great encouragement I’ll take with me forever.”

Archery coach Wang Yu-bin shares the same sentiment, saying that a sense of honor is the main motivation for athletes, while the handsome monetary prizes on offer are just an extra incentive. “When athletes reach a certain level, the only goal they have is to grab the highest honor at international competitions,” he explains. “As long as they’re still competing, [most] athletes don’t think much about what the future holds for them. They just want to give it their all to pick up the gold.”

NSTC director Wang says that the significance of Taiwan’s participation in the Olympics, regardless of the number of medals the country captures, is that the event can bring all citizens together as one while they cheer for local athletes. It also inspires the country’s young people to have a dream and strive for it as these Olympic competitors have done, he adds.

Tsai says that he will continue to train weightlifters on the national team not only for the London games, but also for other competitions coming up in the next four years, including the 2016 Olympiad. He believes athletic competitions provide equal opportunities for countries to compete regardless of a nation’s size. “I hope that people can see that we can make it to the top just like any other country as long as we have faith in ourselves and work hard,” he says.

When asked what has driven her to continue tough training that most young people could not endure, weightlifter Hsu Shu-ching answers briefly and cheerfully, saying “Winning glory for my country.” Meanwhile, she expresses appreciation to her coaches for all their care and support on her long journey. Ready to take on the world in the Olympic arena, Hsu is excited. “I’m not nervous. [I’m] just looking forward to it, looking forward to it and looking forward to it,” she says.

Write to Audrey Wang at ycwang06@mofa.gov.tw