Zhou Yang's Family is Watching From the Quake Zone

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121821738263624857.html

Watching From the Quake Zone
Chinese Pole Vaulter's Proud Family
In Sichuan Eagerly Awaits Her Performance
By JAMES T. AREDDY
August 8, 2008 7:35 p.m.
CHONGYI, China -- As Chinese pole vault hopeful Zhou Yang marched into the Bird's Nest on Friday night as part of her nation's Olympic squad, her family was watching, balanced on the edges of furniture back home in their Sichuan province farmhouse.

Nearly half the 42,000 people in this town, more than 1,600 miles from Beijing, lost their homes in China's May 12 earthquake. Reminders of China's worst natural disaster in decades are continuous.


James T. Areddy for The Wall Street Journal
Zhou Daoshuang, a farmer in Chongyi China, tries to spot his daughter, a pole vaulter, on the television broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. His daughter, Zhou Yang, qualified this year for China's team. In the background, the athlete's mother, Yang Shanhua.
Even as athletes were parading into the ceremony on Friday night, another aftershock jolted Ms. Zhou's father upright from his TV-viewing perch on the side of a table. "That was a strong one," said the man, Zhou Daoshuang. He should know, as more than 22,000 aftershocks have shaken the region since May.

His only child has been part of China's official sports system for almost half her 20 years. She was identified as having athletic potential, initially for her 1.70 meter height by the time she was 11. "Tall as the doorway," a cousin said. Two years later she went away to a sports academy. Ms. Zhou's parents see her rarely when she has a break from training.

"Basically, we aren't affected by the earthquake so she doesn't have anything to be anxious about," says Mr. Zhou. However, more than 300 people live in temporary homes across the rice paddies where the Zhou family farmhouse stands.

In the Zhou home, the ceiling fell in on one room, but the family considers itself lucky. Ms. Zhou had returned to training after a break just a day before the quake struck – and spent an agonizing four days worrying about her parents until phone service was restored, said her mother, Yang Shanhua.

Shortly after that visit, Ms. Zhou first indicated to her father that she was likely to make China's Olympic team. "It's been my hope she could compete in the Olympics," said her father. He said he never shared his dream with his daughter.

The family, peasants who grow wheat and rice, never considered going to Beijing. "We don't have tickets," says Mr. Zhou, shaking his head at the prices in hundreds of dollars each.

As the Chinese Olympic team finally filed into the Bird's Nest more than three hours after the ceremony began, the family was crowded around a television in an upstairs bedroom and looked for Ms. Zhou but couldn't spot her. "I've always been able to find her. But I can't see her yet," said her mother.

Then the phone rang. It was Ms. Zhou, calling from inside the Bird's Nest. "I'm in the second row of the yellow suits," she told her mother. But the ceremony ended without the family seeing Ms. Zhou.

At the opening ceremonies, the earthquake was a subtle theme. An elementary-school earthquake survivor accompanied basketball star and China team flag-bearer Yao Ming, for instance.

Of China's 639 athletes, around 30 hail from Sichuan, including tennis star Zhang Jie, who played at Wimbledon this year.

People in the quake zone said they were wanted to enjoy the Olympics and put their troubles aside for a while. "The Olympics might change the mood here," said Wang Guobao, 26 years old, who watched the ceremony at the Snowflake Beer Garden in Dujiangyan, which is ringed by facades of cracked buildings.

For women, pole vaulting wasn't introduced to the Olympics until the 2000 Games in Sydney, where a Chinese woman came in tenth. The Zhou family didn't know much about the sport until their daughter took it up. Ms. Zhou's mother has never seen her compete in person, but the photos look frightening. "It's so high and dangerous," she said.

Ms. Zhou is near the high point of her career, and lavishes gifts on the family from her competitions in places like Japan and Australia. In May she won gold at an Olympic preparatory sporting event in Beijing, when she vaulted 4.30 meters. A few months later, Russian world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva would fly 5.04 meters, a big gap.

"Even if she finishes eighth that would be fine," said Mr. Zhou. "We just wait until August 16," when his daughter is scheduled to compete.