From Auckland and Portland to Germany and Pordenone, the coaches behind several Dakar 2026 wushu athletes spent decades building clubs far from China. Xinhua spoke to four of them after wushu's Olympic debut.

During the wushu competition at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, short shouts of encouragement in Chinese kept coming from the coaches' seats. The voices belonged to coaches wearing the kit of New Zealand, the United States, Germany and Italy. In a feature published after the competition, Xinhua's reporters in Dakar spoke to several of these overseas coaches, many of whom have spent decades building wushu schools far from China and finally saw a student step onto an Olympic carpet.

Wushu's first Olympic medal competition ran from 1 to 3 November, with 47 athletes from 46 countries and regions in four combined events. The International Wushu Federation now has member associations in 164 countries and regions across five continents.

New Zealand: training around school

New Zealand's Amber Zhou, the country's first wushu athlete at an Olympic event, competed in the women's changquan combined. According to Xinhua, she has trained for eight years, mostly outside school hours and sometimes only once or twice a week. An injury during her preparation meant she could only commit fully to training about two months before the Games. Her coach, Zhao Wei, said he was largely satisfied with her overall performance given how little time a student her age has for training. Zhao founded a wushu academy in New Zealand that has 300 to 400 students and runs clubs in schools.

USA: from "I have to" to "I want to"

Gao Jiamin, a former taijiquan world champion who now teaches in Portland, coaches Marshall Brayton, who has trained with her for 11 years and kept going through the pandemic. In the men's taijiquan combined final, Brayton scored 9.386 in taijiquan, the best mark in that routine, but a weaker taijishan kept him off the podium. Gao said the key for young athletes is to love the sport, and that reaching the Olympic stage at all is encouragement for many children and coaches training wushu outside China. For his taijiquan music, the pair chose the Chinese classic "The Butterfly Lovers", a piece Gao felt matched the calm character of the routine.

Video: USA Wushu-Kungfu Federation (USAWKF) / YouTube

Germany: a father, a coach and a bronze medal

The most emotional story belonged to Zhuo Haojun, coach and father of Germany's Mia Zhuo, who took bronze in the women's taijiquan combined, the only European medal of the competition. Zhuo, whose own mother was a taijiquan coach, moved to Germany in 1998 and has taught there for almost three decades, from four-year-olds to students in their eighties. He told Xinhua he used to carry his daughter on his back while teaching, and his voice broke as he said it. With her, he said, he has been careful to manage training loads to avoid injuries. He added, with obvious pride, that while other children name Jet Li as their idol, his daughter says her idol is her dad.

Italy: from street demonstrations to 600 students

Italy's coach Liu Yuwei was drawn to wushu by the film "Shaolin Temple". He returned to China to learn, then opened a school in Italy. Early on, recruiting was hard, so he and friends gave demonstrations in the street. Today his school in Pordenone has 500 to 600 students. His athlete Lorenzo Armani started with him at the age of five, moving from changquan to taijiquan, which he had practised for only about a year before Dakar. To prepare, coach and athlete travelled to Wenzhou in China, and in the final two months Armani trained every day. Liu said he was "very satisfied" with the result.

For these coaches, the three days in Dakar were a reunion as much as a competition. Their next training sessions back home, as Xinhua put it, are already waiting.

Source: Xinhua. Related: Germany's Mia Zhuo takes taijiquan bronze.

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