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Journalism of Courage
Guo Xiaolong paints a picture of a match from another age that sounds a lot like a scene out of a Shaolin movie. He talks about men in silk robes with a sash around their hips in the Chinese hinterlands, flinging oak branches on large swathes of grasslands, slapping a ‘fireball’ that could be seen in pitch dark nights.
Growing up in Morin Dawa, Xiaolong heard stories of these games from hundreds of years ago from his father, who heard from his father, and so on. The British, who passed the game to their colonies, called it hockey. The Chinese had another name for it: beikou. “But the point is,” Xiaolong says through a translator, “that we have played hockey for several hundred years in China.”
It’s just now that they are waking up to the sport. On the men’s side, that is.
For almost a decade, eulogies have been written about Asian hockey. Japan’s 2018 Asian Games title looks like a flash in the pan. South Korea are no longer the force they were a decade and a half ago. Malaysia keep under-achieving. And Pakistan have a glorious tendency to implode.
Amidst the under-funded programmes around Asia, China are now pouring in resources into the men’s game to rewrite the Asian order. It’s still early days, but the signs are there. In September 2024, they stunned Malaysia, Japan and Pakistan to reach the final of the Asian Champions Trophy. In the title clash, China held their own against the only remaining Asian superpower, India, who were fresh from a second successive Olympic bronze medal. They eventually lost 0-1, thanks to a late goal from Jugraj Singh.
A year on, China gave India an early scare, held Japan to a gritty draw and whipped South Korea to come within touching distance of their first Asia Cup final. A win for Malaysia against Korea might complicate their path to Sunday’s final but the world’s 22nd-ranked side has done enough to turn heads with their speed on the counterattacks and the defensive discipline.
China’s star power might still not be visible on the field. However, that they mean business is apparent from their dugout.
Their 18-man squad for the Asia Cup is accompanied by a 12-member support team. It’s the largest entourage among all teams, including India. In the quantity, there’s some solid quality too: there’s Michel van de Heuvel, who was a part of the coaching team that masterminded Belgium’s path to the Olympic gold; they have Roelant Oltmans, the wily Dutch Olympic-gold winning tactician who has also coached India, Pakistan and Malaysia; and then there’s Australian Anthony Farry, known to work his magic with the underdogs, be it the Canadian men, who returned to the Olympic stage under him, the Japanese women whom he led to a first-ever Asian Games gold or the Indian women’s side.
“They are determined to show the world that China can be good in men’s hockey as well,” says Oltmans. “The women have already shown it.”
It’s a surprise it has taken so long for China to warm up to men’s hockey. The women’s programme took off at the Beijing Olympics, where they won the silver medal. The Olympic boost did not last long but after years of struggle, China got two of the best brains in world hockey — Australians Alyson Annan and Ric Charlesworth — to return to the podium in Paris with a remarkable silver, where they nearly did what few countries have done in the last decade or so: beat the Netherlands women’s team.
Now, the same strategy — of hiring the best coaches available in the market — is being deployed for the men’s team. “Their presence is a boost,” China’s captain Chen Chongcong says. Xiaolong, who is on his first international tour, replies: “We have always had players. Now, we have people to show us the direction.”
Xiaolong is tall and has pronounced cheekbones, a recognisable trait of the Daurs, one of China’s smallest ethnic groups. “We were nomadic people who founded the Liao dynasty,” Xiaolong says. “When there was no hockey stick, we used wooden sticks. There were grass plains and the nomadic people played on it with tree branches, and we lit the ball, and played in the dark.”
When modern hockey reached China in the 1970s, the Daurs from Inner Mongolia were naturally inclined. The first Chinese team in 1976 was predominantly composed of players from the Daur ethnic group. The dominance hasn’t waned over the years. One-third of the Chinese team that won the 2008 Olympics silver medal was from the region while nearly half of the side — seven players out of 18 — in the Asia Cup are from Morin Dawa, Xiaolong says.
Chongcong, who is from the southeastern province of Guangdong, says Morin Dawa sweeps domestic titles and the coaches from the region are spread all over China, teaching the young players the basics of the game. “It’s the home of hockey in China,” Chongcong adds.
Van de Heuvel and Farry got a sense of the scale of China’s ambition when they saw the investment in infrastructure and the readiness of the players to put in the hard yards.
“You don’t mess with China,” laughs Xue Jiachuan, who helps Chongcong and Xiaolong with the translation. When the duo is asked about their ambitions, though, there’s no need for interpreters. “Olympics,” Chongcong says. “Los Angeles 2028,” Xiaolong, who is on his first international tour, chips in.
Nothing’s lost in translation there.
