Handing your ten year old child to a National sports authority for them to join a full-time training regime in a sport they had never participated in, is not normal practice in the UK.
But that is just what the parents of Lijia Xu did on 27 June 1997 in Shanghai, and from that unlikely scenario ‘Lily’ went on to become China’s first sailing Olympic gold medalist and a multi world champion.
Lily’s first sport choice, from the age of five, was swimming . . . we are not talking of playing in a paddling pool, but two hours swimming every day after school and at weekends, with a day off for Chinese New Year.
The change to sailing at age ten seemed completely fortuitous and after a two week trial Lily was one of three accepted from fifty, and left home to start learning to sail an Optimist. From then on Lily only went back home to see her parents once or twice a year for a few days holiday.
The scheme Lily joined was basically a rotation of selected children from the age of ten, to be trained to compete in the Chinese National and Asian Games held every four years in the Optimist (age limit 15). Lily was to win many National and Asian titles before winning the girls Optimist world title in 2001 and again in 2002.
In this up-dated account of her journey through the grueling Chinese sport-wide training programme, Lily opens up on her life in the west after adding Radial gold in London 2012 to the bronze she won in Qingdao 2008.
After her final Olympic campaign at Rio 2016, Lily describes what making the break from China’s sporting control has meant, both for her and her parents, as she embraced the wider opportunities her Olympic sailing success brought. And the contrast in lifestyles and expectations, good and bad, that she has encountered since leaving China.
In order to build a new life in the west as a sports journalist she had to forgo the privileges that Olympic Champions are awarded in China . . . Assigned a top leadership job and career, a good job and pension; and fast track medical facilities – important for Lily who suffered a number of medical problems from birth and later sports related injuries.
The part her sailing coach Jon Emmett played in her success and the transition to this new life, including their subsequent marriage, brings together a story that Lily could never have imagined when she took that switch from swimming to sailing as a ten year old in Shanghai.
Golden Lily – 10 Years On
By Lijia Xu
Published by Fernhurst Books Sept 2025
240pp RRP: £14.99
