Ma’s amazing comeback
Takashi Yamada and Jiro Mochizuki
report from Shanghai on the return of a man who is challenging
John Smith for the title of "World’s Most Famous
Coach"
It should be emphasised that the All-China National Games, established in 1956 and held every four years, are more important to Chinese people than the Olympics or World Championships. The competition is extremely fierce.
Thirty eight teams, representing cities, provinces, self governing areas like Tibet and Hong Kong, the Liberation Army etc, took part in this year’s Games in Shanghai - which saw the return of coach Ma Junren with a new team of incredible athletes.
Ma first emerged in April 1993 when his female distance runners, who would be tagged "Ma’s Girls" or "Ma’s Army", took the first eight positions in the Tianjing Marathon. The winner of that race, Wang Junxia, clocked 2:24:07. A few months later, at the IAAF World Championships in Stuttgart, Chinese runners dominated events from 1500m to 10,000m - winning six medals. But at a press conference Ma declared that it was all just a warm-up for the All-China Games. Yet no one could have predicted what was to follow - an astonishing attack on the record books. In one race, the 3000m, five runners, led by Junxia, ran inside the existing world record. A few months later, Ma’s Army turned up at the IAAF World Marathon Cup in San Sebastian, Spain and took the first four places with Junxia again at the front.
But then suddenly, at the beginning of 1994, Ma Junren disappeared from the scene. Sick, injured in a car accident, upset about allegations flying in all directions about the way he handled the money won by his runners, the coach was in trouble. His top runners, Wang Junxia and Liu Dong, grumbled about the share they received of the spoils and broke away from the group. All the other girls, except Qu Yunxia, followed suit. Wang, with a new coach, won Olympic gold at 5000m and silver at 10,000m.
Until October 1997 Ma Junren seemed to have disappeared for good. There were no Ma athletes at major international competitions like the Atlanta Olympics and the Athens World Championships.
Now we know why. Ma was busy preparing a dramatic comeback for the All-China Games. He left his original home at the Lianing school and moved to Dalian, where he was given 80,000 acres of land by the local authorities and built his own training centre. He completely renewed his team with new talents.
He also changed dramatically. The 1997 Ma is much more open and talkative than the dour, chain-smoking Ma of 1993. Now he has a fashionable hairstyle, is more relaxed and self-assured and is surrounded by sponsors and admirers. A crowd of journalists follow him wherever he goes. He is a superstar in China. His team even have their own bus.
Yet one thing has remained the same, Ma’s training methods. Strict discipline, brutally hard training at altitude are still the norm. Before the latest National Games Ma’s runners trained for more than six weeks at 2,400 metres altitude in Doba, Chingkai Province.
These Games became the battleground for a war between Ma and his rival coaches. They knew he would try and astonish them. Ma admitted that he wanted to better the results obtained by the best athletes in the World Championships in Athens. And he did. In the 1500m, the first eight of a field of 12 were from Ma’s team. His greatest talent is now Jiang Bo. Now 20, Jiang was discovered by Ma in 1994 and had her first success in 1995 when she beat the great Wang Junxia at 5000m with a time of 14:45.90 (a world junior record). In Shanghai, she clocked 3:50.98 for 1500m, less than half a second outside Qu’s world record. But Jiang didn’t look too happy when she crossed the finish line. The reason was that Ma had planned for Qu to win the race. At 25, but already burned out by the training loads she had endured since the age of 15, Qu hoped for a "grand finale." Jiang was to be the pace maker. But Ma’s plan went awry. Qu tripped and fell just after the start, but the other group members did not realise. Ma was signalling from the stands - telling the girls to run without waiting for Qu. But they hesitated until the last bend when they looked around and realised what had happened. They increased their speed but it was too late and the pacemaker took the title.
But nothing went wrong in the 10,000m. It was like a time trial. Dong Yianmei (20) led the entire race to finish in 30:38.09. Eighteen year-old Lan Lixin clocked 30:39.41, a world junior record. A few days later Dong broke the world record for 5000m in her heat with 14:31.27.
After their performances, Ma said that the girls were still very raw and lacked racing experience. It had been more important for them to learn how to race rather than run fast times, so obviously the world records had come as a pleasant surprise.
The highlight of the Games was the 5000m final. In the heats the old world record was bettered by both Dong and Jiang. In the final, Jiang and Dong were neck and neck for most of the race. In the end Bo prevailed in 14:28.09 - more than eight seconds inside the pre-Shanghai world record - with Dong just behind in 14:29.82.
The two athletes said after the race: "Today we did it, but any girl on our team is capable of breaking world records at any distance from 800m to the marathon. All thanks to Ma, our coach."
Apart from this statement, Ma’s girls are not very talkative. They just repeat what they have been told to say. They are also beginning to wave their sponsor’s flags in front of TV cameras.
It is clear that training with Ma means athletes have fantastic results … and short careers. We should look forward to seeing a lot of new faces four years from now.
Takashi Yamada and Jiri Mochizuki work for Agence Shot.
