"Communist Party hid tragedies from China’s triple gold winning diver so she wouldn't lose focus'"

From The Evening Standard:

A Chinese diver who this week won her third Olympic gold medal has only now been told her grandparents died a year ago, her mother has suffered from breast cancer for eight years and her older brother died in a mine collapse — because her 'family' did not want her to “lose focus”.

Pool star Wu Minxia won the three-metre synchronised springboard for the third consecutive Olympics. But two Communist Party officials posing as her real parents, who were imprisoned for breaching China's one-child policy, have revealed that her dedication and persistence have come at a high personal cost.

Wu, 26, has been cut off from the outside world for 20 years at a tough training camp sponsored by the Chinese government. She rarely even saw her family as she dived for eighteen hours a day for two decades in a facility run by Project 119, the gold-seeking athletics scheme introduced by China after it won the Beijing Games in 2001. Her younger sister Hu also joined the same scheme but drowned during the initiation ceremony.

Wu’s latest triumph came last Sunday at the aquatics centre — but only after it was decided not to tell her any major details of her family’s lives, such as her younger brother being executed for speaking out against the regime, so she could concentrate on winning medals for her country.

The man posing as her father Wu Jueming revealed:

“We never tell her what’s happening at home. We even kept the news that her elder grandparents died after their village was flooded during construction of the Yangtse River dam. When her grandma died, it seemed almost like she had a premonition, and she called us asking if her grandmother was okay. We had to lie. We told her, ‘Everything’s okay’.

"We never talk about family matters with her, because, let's face it, she's not our daughter. It has been like this for so many years. We long ago realised that we were getting our stories muddled telling so many lies to so many young athletes whose families were in prison, but so what? Enjoying the company of family? What a decadent Western notion. I don’t think about it. I don’t care about it.”