What's a few lost years, unless it's your only childhood?

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Chinese athletes who ended up doing so well at the Olympics (the most gold medals of any country) paid a high price:

If anybody feels a pang of jealousy over China's haul of Olympic gold medals, they need only pause to consider what the athletes went through to get them.
The contrast couldn't be greater than between the Chinese and US athletes. In their post-match interviews, the Americans rambled on about their parents, their siblings, their pets, their hobbies. They repeatedly used the word fun. Shawn Johnson, the 16-year-old gymnast, waxed enthusiastic about the classes she'll take when she returns to her public high school in West Des Moines, Iowa.
"To achieve Olympic glory for the motherland is the sacred mission assigned by the Communist Party central," is how Chinese Sports Minister Liu Peng put it at the beginning of the Games.
The Chinese athletes generally don't have pets or hobbies. Or brothers or sisters (since most are products of China's one-child policy).
"You have no control over your own life. Coaches are with you all the time. People are always watching you, the doctors, even the chefs in the cafeteria. You have no choice but to train so as not to let the others down," gymnast Chen Yibing told Chinese reporters last week after winning a gold medal on the rings. He said he could count the amount of time he'd spent with his parents "by hours... very few hours."
The Chinese sports system was inspired by the Soviet Union. Whereas many US athletes have ambitious parents to nurture their talents, China's future champions are drafted as young children for state-run boarding schools. Scouts trawl through the population of schoolchildren for potential champions, plucking out the extremely tall for basketball, the slim and double-jointed for diving -- regardless of whether they know how to swim.
The final tally gave China 51 gold medals to the United States' 36, and although the Americans won more medals overall (110 to 100), the statistics allowed the Chinese government to claim victory for what Liu called its "scientific" methods.
But the costs are higher than many Westerners would tolerate. China is suspected of using 14-year-old gymnasts and falsifying their ages to get around a rule designed to protect girls' health during the transition into puberty. In sports where younger athletes are permitted, they often take risks that elsewhere would be unacceptable.
Despite the validation provided by the Olympic medal count, China is probably heading in the direction of a more open system where the athletes have more freedom. Having tasted celebrity and the wealth it can bring, many athletes have balked at remaining in a system where they are treated like rank-and-file soldiers.
More sophisticated Chinese are also mindful that being an Olympic superpower doesn't necessarily translate into world dominance. The 1988 Olympics in Seoul were a huge triumph for the Soviet Union and East Germany, which won 55 and 37 gold medals, respectively. By the time the next Olympics took place, in 1992, both countries were defunct.

Rico says he doesn't think the Communists are going to suddenly fall out of power in China, but in case anyone missed it, the place is looking more and more capitalistic every day...