Tokyo Olympics: ex-China star Ma Jin is Mexico’s secret weapon as mainland flexes soft power muscles through sport
- By sending coaches to different outposts across the globe, it helps to push ‘China’s image as a great sporting nation’
- Started in 1957 by then-premier Zhou Enlai, nearly 3,000 have been sent to 126 countries and regions in Asia, Africa and Latin America
Diving at the Olympics has long been the domain of China, Russia, Canada and Great Britain. But every so often, Mexico will appear on the medals table.
It is not by chance the Latin American country has springboarded into success, but via a little-known soft power diplomacy programme dating back to 1957. In the past decade, Mexico has made headway through this unconventional route, a bond of friendship forged with China, and personified by a diving coach named Ma Jin.
04:52
Gold medals galore for China at Olympics as athletes struggle with stifling heat in Tokyo
The Beijing native was sent across the Pacific Ocean in 2003 and the Tokyo Games is Ma’s fourth Olympics as the head coach of the Mexican national diving team.
“This Olympics is the first time in Mexico’s diving history that we have qualified for all eight diving events,” Ma told state news agency Xinhua.
While Ma expected her divers to achieve Olympic glory in the men’s and women’s synchronised 10m platform, and in women’s synchronised 3m springboard, Mexico earned a bronze only in the latter.