This was the system that discovered Yao Ming, the tallest player in the NBA and a regular starter in the annual All-Star Game. The Houston Rockets center was born in Shanghai in 1980 to two retired basketball players who were then the tallest couple in China. City officials had encouraged Yao’s parents to get married in the hope that they would produce a sporting giant. They were not disappointed: Yao was nearly double the size of the average Chinese newborn. When he was 13, and already over 6’5”, he moved out of home and into the Shanghai Sports Technology Institute. For the next eight years, his parents hardly saw him as he was moulded into the basketball superstar in the size 18 sneakers that we know today. Despite injuring his foot this season, Yao is expected to play for China at the Olympics.

Liu Xiang, a slim 24-year-old with a boyish face, is another outstanding product of the system. The only child of a truck driver and a waitress, in the fourth grade Liu was selected and placed in a sports school, where he excelled at high jump. At 15, he met a hurdle coach who persuaded him to switch events. In 2004, he won gold at Athens in the 110m hurdles, with a world-record-equalling time of 12.91 seconds. “I believe I achieved a modest miracle for the yellow-skinned Chinese people and the Asian people,” he said afterwards. His politically incorrect observation highlighted a point that is often glossed over: China’s push for medals has a distinct racial undertone, as if the country were determined to prove that the “yellow-skinned” man is the physical equal of his black and white rivals.