Former national diving coach Yu Fen, midway through a legal dispute with the country's diving authority over unpaid bonuses, set nerves on edge yesterday by announcing that she may leave China to coach overseas.

"Sport has no national boundary," the Olympic champion-producing coach told China Daily by phone. "Diving is my lifetime career and developing the best athletes, whether Chinese or foreigners, is always my target."

Although cagey when pressed on whether she would join the exodus of Chinese coaches plying their talents abroad, she said: "It's natural for a coach to live and work where you can be better recognized."

Yu, a former lynchpin of China's national coaching staff, taught Beijing Games gold medalist Guo Jingjing and world champion Fu Minxia before leaving the camp on bitter terms and taking up a position at highly esteemed Tsinghua University, where she claims divers are treated far more humanely.

There she has continued her phenomenal success - a handful of current national team members were formerly stewarded by her at Tsinghua - and continued to butt heads with the powers that be at a national level.

As the plot continues to thicken in her case against the China Swimming Administrative Center (SAC), which has only admitted to owing Yu a tiny fraction of the millions of yuan she claims she is owed from bonuses won by her former protgs, Yu said the legal wrangle would have no bearing on her desire to seek out greener pastures overseas.

"I heard some people have said I would go to abroad if the case goes against me, but this and the (notion of me) coaching another team have nothing to do with the case," she said.

"Although the suit has become more complicated than I expected, I still believe it will be settled in a fair and balanced way. I have never lost hope. I've got sufficient evidence and I expect to see a favorable result soon."

She said the SAC had forced her into a corner, threatening her economic survival in the country and forcing her to adopt unconventional means to defend herself.

"Earning bonuses from my students' achievements amounts to a basic income on which I rely to live," she said. "Without this, how can I continue my life and training?"

Yu has earned a reputation as a maverick who openly criticizes China's state-supported sports system for not providing young divers with a proper education.

She once threatened to take her university divers abroad because they were not allowed to take part in any major tournaments as a team.

"I have proven the possibility of developing the nation's best divers at a university. I believe one day the university training system will be recognized," she said.

At present, there is still a big gap between the US college sports model and China's state-centric system. Until that gulf is bridged, Yu expects to continue to come up against the authorities - unless she heads overseas.

'Nothing personal'

Although previous tirades have seen her point the finger at her successor as national team manger Zhou Jihong, Yu was keen to point out that she does not hold Zhou personally responsible for the alleged 'misappropriation' of her bonuses.

"It's natural to have a row with somebody," she said, referring to her previous confrontations with Zhou for heading up what she sees as an antiquated and dehumanizing training system.

"I had a tiff with her years ago but it's all in the past."

"You cannot link that to my (latest) claim. There is no relationship between the two."

Yu has repeatedly made headlines since leaving the national team in the wake of the 1996 Atlanta Games. Her most recent run in came in the lead up to this summer's Beijing Games, when her application to rejoin the national team was denied.

Although critics have bemoaned her penchant for hanging out her dirty laundry in public, she said she had to resort to legal action over the latest financial dispute after the SAC failed to give her a fair response.

Last week the body announced that, by its calculations, Yu is owed unpaid bonuses in the region of 25,000 yuan - about 1 percent of what she was expecting.

(China Daily November 26, 2008)