Last breath before a 10-meter high jump: in a Beijing swimming pool, budding athletes, some as young as seven, already imagine themselves as future Olympic diving champions.
China, which excels in this discipline, won eight gold medals out of a possible eight at the Paris Olympics in 2024, a record for a team at the Olympic Games.
In a country that cultivates the spirit of competition from a young age, this performance is enough to inspire vocations.
Standing several metres up, arms outstretched, children, as if concentrating on an exam, take turns jumping into the water from a diving board.
The most intrepid risk a front somersault. Others throw themselves into the void backwards, head first.
In Beijing, the Muxiyuan sports school trains the Chinese athletes of tomorrow who hope to one day shine for their country.
The facility, which has facilities for several disciplines, is one of the most renowned in the country for diving.
Study vacation
Among the budding champions met by AFP at the water’s edge is 12-year-old Zhang Jiarui.
“I was a bit naughty when I was little and my parents put me in gymnastics,” recalls the teenager, who says she fell in love with diving in 2021 at the Tokyo Games in Japan.
“Seeing the Chinese team on TV climb to the top step of the podium […] “I decided to give it a try,” Zhang Jiarui smiled, referring to the Olympic title won by diver Cao Yuan.
While most students her age are on summer vacation, she and her classmates train more than seven hours a day. The best will represent the national team.
The rest of the year, “we go to school in the morning and train in the afternoon,” Jiarui said. “So we have to work harder.”
Nearby, coach Cao Ke is looking after a group with an average age of nine, trying to identify potential future medallists.
“We are looking for innate qualities such as strength above all else. […] and ease in the water,” he told AFP, but “attitude in training and competitiveness” are also essential.
“No secret”
Stakes, somersaults… nothing escapes the experienced gaze of Cao Ke who comments on his group’s performances at the edge of the pool.
“You’re leaning back a little too much,” he points out to a girl who is practicing a back dive.
When the budding champions are not in the water, they perfect their moves in a gym equipped with trampolines, mattresses and safety harnesses for practicing in the air.
“There is no secret. It is only through hard work” that the Chinese team will be able to remain competitive, Cao Ke emphasizes.
“It takes time to perfect each movement,” insists the coach, who says he has no choice but to reject students who are not up to standard.
This iron discipline is the strength of the Chinese team, according to Ma Jin, a Chinese coach who now supervises the Mexican diving team.
“In China, divers start training from the age of five or six,” unlike those abroad who “just play” at that age, he emphasizes to AFP.
“Bringing Glory”
Quan Hongchan, who won two gold medals in Paris and one in Tokyo when she was just 14, started diving at the age of seven.
To win Olympic gold in diving, China is sparing no expense.
Muxiyuan School, for example, employs specialist chefs to prepare meals for young athletes.
The yogurt they are served is produced exclusively for them and is not sold commercially, according to a trainer who wishes to remain anonymous.
The coaches are also “mostly top divers,” which is a definite plus for international competitions, according to Li Hongping, a former national team diver.
For Zhang Jiarui, the champion in the making, the goal is clear: to get on the Olympic podium to “bring glory” to China.