Word: guo
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...celebrate the individual. Many mainland athletes, particularly divers and gymnasts, are plucked from normal life around first grade and deposited into sports schools, where they train up to nine hours a day and spend what little downtime they have imbibing communist propaganda. So it was for Tian Liang and Guo Jingjing, Chinese divers who are favored to win gold medals in Athens. It was the state, after measuring their narrow hips and flexible tendons, that decided the couple would somersault into the water for a living. At the time, they were just seven years old. Tian remembers his first terrifying...
...China hungers for a new type of hero to replace the socialist icons of a bygone era, the nation's athletes are turning their sporting prowess into a marketable asset. Tian and Guo are among the first to make this headlong leap. Tian, the reigning Olympic champion in platform diving, zips around in a Mitsubishi Pajero suv and has a closet full of Versace and Armani. His rock-star mane and six-pack abs have helped cast him as a pitchman for Amway and Bausch & Lomb. Guo, with her porcelain-doll features and two silver medals from the Sydney Olympics...
...worker in a movie called Far from Home. Fellow gymnast Li Xiaoshuang has recorded an album of pop ditties. Fu Mingxia, the legendary diver who first struck gold as a teddy-bear-carrying 13-year-old in Barcelona, has appeared on Sprite cans. "Sports is an industry now," says Guo, declining like a seasoned pro to discuss the details of her endorsement contracts. "It's another example of how economic reforms have changed China...
...threatening behavior is counterproductive. In the 2000 Taiwanese elections, the vitriol from Beijing actually gave Chen a 5% boost in the polls, according to a survey consultant. "The Chinese government's confidence in dealing with diplomatic issues has increased and they don't haggle over every little issue," says Guo Dingping, a political science professor at Shanghai's Fudan University. "They're now focusing more on long-term interests instead of insignificant altercations across the strait." Still, politicians in Taiwan caution that subtlety doesn't mean China has softened its cross-strait stance. "Beijing may be showing self-restraint...
...quality than in my labor camp." Beatings by center staff and inmate trusties were a regular occurrence and, says Tong, "inmates were frequently held for ransom until their families could scrape together the money to buy them out." Indeed, just one day after the verdict in Sun's case, Guo Xianli, an accountant from a C.-and-R. center in Hunan province, revealed that his colleagues had teamed up with police in the provincial city of Lianyuan to form a kidnapping-and-ransom ring, which netted nearly $400,000 in four years. They would ensnare traveling peasants with promises...