She won the 1998 women's champion of the World skills Championship and retired in 2000, but then found herself struggle for hunting jobs. Liu Fei had to live in a small room, while her father had to sleep in a folding bed placed in a small corridor. The distress of life is heartbreaking. Liu Fei again and again said that she regret selecting the career of sports.
She said,” Flowers, applause, celebrity all embraced me when I was standing on the podium of world champion. I had never thought about whether it's wrong for me to choose the career. However, when I retired, I fell on evil days and was never out. I have no house to live, no work for a living. Even I have no idea of the whereabouts of my residence account. Even basic household appliances such as washing machines and refrigerators are, when it comes to Liu Fei, elusive dreams. While injury got from training day after day still is hounding and haunting her.
China's Disposable Athletes
When Zou Chunlan left school to become a professional athlete, her recruiting coach assured the 13-year-old that the nation's huge sports bureaucracy would look after her for the rest of her life. All she had to worry about was winning. For a decade, Zou followed his advice, winning the 48-kg national weightlifting title in 1990 when she was 19 years old and pocketing four other national championships. But when she retired in 1993, Zou discovered that the coach's side of the bargain wasn't going to be met. After three years of menial jobs in the women's weightlifting team's kitchen, she was asked to leave.
With her little education and total ignorance of the real world, Zou had little choice but to turn to physical labor. After stints carrying sacks on a construction site and selling lamb kebabs in the street, she ended up as a masseuse in a public bathhouse earning $60 a month. Her fate isn't unusual. A weightlifting coach explained to the Beijing News that Zou wasn't the only retired weightlifter struggling with the real world. "Zou's national medals are worthless. There are world champions who end up jobless after retirement."
Since her plight became public, things have taken a turn for the better for Zou. With the help of the All China Women's Federation, she opened a laundry shop six months ago in her hometown, Changchun, capital of Jilin Province. She no longer has to work as a masseuse at a bath house. But she is still struggling. Unable to read and unfamiliar with computers, she says she can hardly manage to add up her accounts. "I gave my youth to sport," she told TIME over the phone, in a voice thick with emotion, "but in return, I was thrown out like garbage with no knowledge, no skill and a barren womb."
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