The first time Susan Brownell walked into the gymnastics gym at Shanghai Yangpu Youth Amateur Athletic School, in Beijing, China, she had to fight the urge to wince.
“You’ve got tiny little kids, who are basically in diapers, and it’s amazing what they can do at that age,” Brownell, an anthropologist from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, tells Tech Insider. “They get bent up like pretzels when they do flexibility exercises.”
Shichahai is just one of thousands of intense sports-centered boarding schools around China. With sizable funding from the federal government, kids as young as 6 who show early talents in sports like taekwando, table tennis, gymnastics, and badminton train for years in the hopes of bringing money and honor back to their families.
For most, the dream dies early. But for some, it’s the first step on the path toward Olympic greatness.
(Sourced from agencies, Feature image courtesy:m.chinadaily.com.cn)
