I don't want to go again in the discussion about the WR of Wang Junxia and the other WR in 1993.
But I need to explain something about Chinese athletics.
Chinese Federation never was a strong Federation, insde the Country, like, for example, the federation of East Germany.
China is divided in 32 Provinces. About 90% of the money for Chinese Sport comes from the Provinces themselves, not from the Central Government. All the athletes are paid by their Province, practically they are workers for the Province. The Provinces have big advantages ONLY when are able to produce winners in the domestic Olympic Games, that are Chinese National Games. Coaches and athletes have big benefits winning medals in this occasion (for example, a house, a car, a better job for all their life).
Chinese athletes, being workers of the Provinces, are not free to go to compete, but need to move inside organized periods of "training camps" abroad, according plans decided from 4 to 6 months before. They need to have the permission from the Government, since they can be abroad only like "mission" (something that can happen also in Italy, for example, for all the athletes competing for military clubs : they need to be authorized by their corp, or for moving free need to ask for a period of holidays).
Coaches, officials and, in many cases, also athletes, are not interested in WCh or, sometimes, OG, because they, in their Province, don't have real advantages from their results. The final goal for Chinese athletes is not to earn money through meetings and private activity, such as all the athletes of western Countries, but is to have a better job inside their Province. This can happen when they can have good competition in China, not when they compete abroad.
I have to face this type of problem today, too, because under this point of view the situation didn't change compared with 20 years ago, but, if possible, is now worse.
Chinese Athletic Association wants to change the system, because is interested in important results during the official institutional championships, but it's for the Federation very difficult to have th disponibility of chinese athletes for long time, because Provincial coaches want to prepare them for one yearly competition only (National Championships), normally in the second part of the season, and at the shape of 80% compared with the shape they achieve for National Games, once every 4 years.
I started my collaboration with Chinese Federation at the beginning of the past November, after following as spectator their National Games. There were no athletes of big talent, but many runners, very Young, with good future possibilities. For example, the first 3 in 10000m ran 31'55" / 31'56" / 31'58", with the second 5 km in 15'40".
All these athletes came together in the National Team. For the first time, Chinese Federation tried to put together the best runners, moving from their different Provinces.
National Games were at the beginning of September. At the beginning of January of this year, all the athletes winning medals in National Games had still to start their training, and I have to send them again to their Provinces, because they didn't have any motivation and were not interested in any activity out of China.
Next year, there are in China World Cross Country Championships, but in China, practically, doesn't exist any activity of cross country. The athletes are all together, in the Provincial School of Sport, with wonderful facilities, in the middle of big cities, but without any road for running. Chinese athletes can be good in all technical events, beause I saw facilities that never, in any other Country in the World, I saw before. But do you understand which kind of mentality for becoming a runner of middle distance you can have, when everything you do is on a indoor track for several months, and never you go for endurance outside a stadium ?
In Liaoning Province, Ma Juren was able to create particular interest, not only in the athletes, but in the Province, in the period 1985-1993, and again with another Group in 1996-97. ALL the best Chinese athletes of the period were from the same province.
The final goal of this activity, were not WCH or OG : were National Games ! I remember, in 1993 in Stuttgart, during WCh, Wang Junxia, after winning the heat of 10000m, jumping for all the duration of the second heat, looking at the other Chinese competing, because the heat was a normal training (such as the final, when she won the title), LOOKING AT NATIONAL GAMES.
Of course that one was not a normal situation, and many athletes of Ma Juren, after finishing their activity, paid very heavily the period of crazy training they had.
But, going at the specific (10000m WR), the reality is that there was an athlete (Wang Junxia) with unbelievable talent (physical and mental), very far also from all the other chinese (the 3rd in that race ran over 31' and was lapped). May be there was doping or the use of some substance part of the ancient chinese tradition, that we don't know ; but the main thing was a training like nobody before, and nobody after, never tried.
In a different social situation, Chinese athletes could have, 20 years ago, great advantages, because there were not alternatives (like currently in Africa). In the situation of today, when Chinese Young generation has a lot of chances, to find somebody with the same culture of fatigue is practically no more possible.