From: www.smh.com.au
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China is looking to the West in the quest for gold at Beijing, writes Charles Whelan.
Towering achievement ... China's Yao Ming looms over the Boomers' Jason Smith.

Towering achievement ... China's Yao Ming looms over the Boomers' Jason Smith.

A foreign legion of coaches, including Australian basketball mentor Tom Maher, is playing a major role in China's drive to win gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.

More than 40 trainers from overseas have been drafted in to help China prepare athletes for what is looming as a major battle with the United States for world sporting supremacy.

"International experience is important to teams preparing for the Games," said Zhou Jing, a spokeswoman from China's National Olympic Committee.

In some sports such as table tennis, China is an exporter of coaching expertise on a grand scale. But in sports where China sees itself trailing, the net has been cast far and wide for foreign expertise.

Maher led the Australian women's basketball team to a bronze medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games and silver in Sydney four years later before guiding New Zealand's fortunes in Athens in 2004. In 2005, he was recruited to lead China's fledgling women's basketball team after China asked the sport's governing body FIBA to recommend a top foreign coach.

"You don't bring in a foreign coach because you have a small problem," Maher said.

Internationally recognised coaches from outside China fill top posts in sports as diverse as water polo, synchronised swimming, hockey, taekwondo and cycling.

"They knew I got results, that's why they came looking for me," said Daniel Morelon, a former Olympic track cycling champion who runs his own velodrome in southern France.

Morelon, 63, winner of several Olympic gold medals as a rider and a coach, has the mission of turning Guo Shuang, a 22-year-old female sprinter, into China's first cycling gold medallist since 1984.

Serb Ratomir Dujkovic has the task of turning the men's football squad into contenders for a medal, while Frenchwoman Elisabeth Loisel is in charge of the women.

Foreign coaches say they are generally held in high regard by Chinese athletes, and the sports ministry has authorised salary packages equal to or often better than comparable posts in the West, several sources says.

"Depending on your responsibilities, you get around $10,000 to $26,000 a month, with a car and a house thrown in," one source said.

And another bonus - Chinese training venues and facilities are the best money can buy. Basketball has exploded in popularity in China, particularly since superstar Yao Ming was drafted No.1 overall by NBA club the Houston Rockets in 2002.

Though Chinese government officials are quick to deny it, the huge investment appears designed to help the country overtake the US in medals after coming narrowly second in Athens four years ago.

"It is written in bold into our contracts - one gold medal at least or you are considered complete failures," said Christian Bauer, who coaches sabre with the fencing team.

He said Chinese officials interfered in his coaching affairs until his team won all the golds at the Asian Games in December 2006.

Only then was he left alone to coach in his own way.

The main problems for foreign coaches, few of whom speak Chinese, are often cultural.