Age-faking and match-fixing: how table tennis trainers and players face gold-medal pressure in China

ABSTRACT

The present research discusses the falsification of athletes’ birthdates in Chinese table tennis and a specific case of match fixing. It investigates why athletes and trainers who faced pressure on performance gave-up match-fixing opportunities, while they have adopted age faking. Based on interviews with the trainers and athletes who considered those alternatives, we show that match fixing did not develop because trainers were worried about a potential moral entrepreneur who had both the interest and power to complain publicly. On the contrary, age faking developed because it aligned the interests of the trainers and athletes belonging to a given institution and conformed to the groups’ ethic. In these circumstances, trainers and athletes have transformed “age faking” into a “collective hypocrisy,” that is a collectively acknowledged and covered practice providing a competitive advantage and presented as a way to maintain virtue.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• age faking
• match-fixing
• table tennis
• sport

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Notes

Chinese athletics officials: No more age cheats. www.chinadaily.com.cn /sports/2010-07/29/content_11065446.htm

² One in five of China’s athletes lie about their age. www.telegrqph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/4978216/One-in-five-of-Chinas-athletes-lie-about-their-age.html#:~:text=An%20x-ray%20analysis%20of,cent%2C%20had%20misrepresented%20their%20age

³ Sport: Thousands of Chinese athletes faking ages in Guangdong. www.reuters.com/article/sport-china-age-idUSSP7288120090311

⁴ 3000 young Chinese athletes found to be older than they claim. www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/mar/11/china-athletes-age-fakes-sport

⁵ In this article, we will be deliberately vague about the cities, provinces covered by our research. The names of our interviewees are anonymized. For ethical reasons, we prefer not to display too many information that could affect the career of trainers and athletes who are still playing at national or international level. For this same reason, we will not communicate a table mentioning the main social characteristics (age at which the player began to play table tennis, city, training center …) of our interviewees.

⁶ Those two trainers were in fact husband and wife. Only the husband was drunk when we discussed this affair. I was invited for dinner at their house after I helped the spouse to check her master thesis in sport sciences and because I already had a friendly relationship with the husband for more than two years. It was during one of my last visits in 2011. At the beginning of the competition, both of them suspected their trainers of engaging in match fixing discussion. They were confirmed that a proposition was declined when the trainer who initiated the arrangement literally exploded at the end of a game her athletes were supposed to win. The desperate coach was told shouting, crying and even kicking in court divider. She came to find the trainer of my informants and insult him in the face of his players. According to my informant, their coach who had lose face during this episode, felt oblige to explain them the origin of the dispute.

⁷ During a dinner with foreign trainers coming to his club, this private entrepreneur was proud to say that the price of his luxury brand shirt was three times higher than the salary of the waiter.

⁸ www.bbc.com/sport/football/26174252

⁹ www.theguardian.com

¹⁰ www.bbc.com/sport/football/26174252

¹¹ https://thebridge.in/featured/menace-age-fraud-indian-sports-how-can-checked/?infinitescroll=1

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aurélien Boucher

Aurélien Boucher is lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen) and a board member of the Asian Journal of Sport History&Culture.