Why China is helping athletes retire with grace

Sporting celebrity does not prepare you for the trip back down. On the Olympic podium one moment, or earning £25,000 a week-plus with a fashionable football team, then career-threatening injury ends the dream.

Two-thirds of life stretches before you like an empty void.

The only thing you ever wanted to do is gone, and with it the seductive adulation and media interest. No train-ing in the world can prepare one for this. Or can it?

China yesterday confronted the reality of sports heroes ending up destitute, announcing that 23,000 professional athletes preparing for Beijing are to receive a year's retraining on retirement. Britain has been doing something similar for a decade.

The deputy general director of personnel at China's Sports Ministry, said they would get financial backing, "to help them learn necessary skills and readjust to society mentally . . . Our measure is aimed at preventing an athlete finding himself in the embarrassing position of being unable to do anything outside sport when he retires."

Fears were expressed in parliament that parents would keep children out of sport due to lack of post-career support.

Zou Chunlan's story became a national embarrassment. A professional weightlifter from the age of 14, she won dozens of national championships, and broke the world record in the clean and jerk and total in the 44-kilo division. But she had to retire due to injury, with £5000 compensation. She had received less than three years' elementary education and ended up working in a bath-house, giving rub-downs with a towel for just over £30 per month. Most of her savings went on medication to treat virilism, the consequence of drugs taken when she competed. When her plight was made public, she was promised help to set up a laundry business.

Zou is more fortunate than former Asian Games weight-lifting champion, Cai Li. He died of pneumonia and obstructive sleep apnoea in 2003. He worked as a security guard for Liaoning Institute of Sport. When he died his family had savings of just £23.

Up to 6000 professional sportsmen and women retire annually in China, and while some do as well as their UK counterparts, by 2003 the number of retired Chinese athletes had reached 279,000.

The British Olympic Association helps elite athletes and coaches with the opportunity for a successful career path, though not geared towards retirement.

UK Sport has a Performance Lifestyle Programme, and the Scottish Institute of Sport was ahead of them in piloting a version based on the Australian Institute. "The primary purpose is to manage performance," says Susan Elms, head of performance lifestyle at SIS, where 89% of competitors believe it has a positive impact. "By addressing the thought of retirement, having dealt with the demons, many stay in sport longer."

She says the transition can be the most traumatic period of an athlete's career, especially if not planned. "It takes four years to plan and prepare," she said. Even development competitors in area institutes receive individually-tailored lifestyle training.

Among those approaching retirement who had such help are former world judo champion Graeme Randall and badminton's Rita Yuan Gao, both now successful coaches.

But nervous breakdowns and suicide are risks for those unable to quit on their own terms. Elms and colleagues are trained to identify risks, and refer athletes for specialist help. "There have been times when we've had to take that intervention," she said.

Phil Gallagher spent nine years with Charlton's football academy, helping prepare players for life after football. Now he's performance lifestyle consultant at UK Sport. One of his hardest tasks is to convince employers of the skills and values which elite competitors bring. "This will become a big focus heading to 2012," he said.