As everywhere in China, the week starts with raising the flag.
As everywhere in China, students wear uniforms,
but this school in Shanghai is rather special.
It trains future champions.
For them, the pressure is on from the very first day school begins.
The French emperor Napoleon said that the soldier
who does not want to become a general is not a good soldier.
That means that everyone must do the utmost to be the best.
It's the only way to succeed, so I urge you to work hard.
Of course, the children know the national anthem by heart.
Here's the made in China recipe for producing future gymnastic champions.
From the age of five, three hours of intensive sport every day.
The most talented children are scouted and selected from all over the country,
and brought to specialist schools like this one.
Stamina, muscle building, suppleness.
After the Maths and Chinese classes,
they train every afternoon, six days a week.
Push my hand.
Come on, push my hand.
Harder. Again.
Now higher.
Yes, like that.
Okay. Let's try something else now.
After jumping more than 40 times,
this little six-year-old girl performs the most difficult exercises,
practically without a break.
Legs further apart.
More.
It's not too tiring for her?
Well, training isn't easy.
They enter competitions.
There are compulsory routines, they have to learn them.
That's what training is.
Over the next ten minutes, the little girl does two sets
of 30 abdominal exercises without, if that's the word, help from her coach.
There, that's right, but lift your head a bit more.
In China, one child in ten trains in these schools.
There are five million children exhausting themselves every day
with one single object.
I like training, yes.
Because I want the gold medal.
Why do you do so much sport?
Because I want to become world champion.
Who wants to be world champion here?
For China, preparing athletes to take up the relay
is a national priority.
The Second World Olympic power behind the United States,
the Middle Empire boasts of its success on its official websites.
Two years ago at the Athens Games, the Chinese took 32 gold medals,
three times more than France,
and enough to make every child gymnast start to dream.
Because a gold medal at the Olympics brings sure fire, fame and fortune.
Advertising government subsidies,
champions like this gymnast make hundreds of thousands of euros.
Those that break a world record become outright heroes.
After running the 110-meter hurdles in 12.91 seconds two years ago,
Liu Xiang appeared in adverts for the biggest American brands,
Nike, McDonald's, or here, Coca-Cola.
It's a paradox in this communist country,
but the national hero works for one of the symbols of capitalist America.
"Oh! Fortunately," she says, "you can leap over obstacles."
Thanks to champions like Liu Xiang, the government has no problem
finding future recruits, and selection starts in kindergarten.
Every year, the principal of this school sees the arrival of coaches
coming to sell their wares.
A dozen children between four and five have been chosen
for their fine physical condition.
They will train all afternoon in the gym.
This little boy is good.
He's very clever, and a very good gymnast.
Coaches come here twice a year.
They go into every class and they ask the children to stand up.
They look at their legs, their arms, and their shoulders.
From what I've seen, they want slender, muscular bodies.
They eliminate any that are a little too chubby.
The parents of the children selected have the right of refusal,
but most consider it an honor and are prepared to accept the pressure
that will be put on their children.
Unemployed, following a serious illness,
Mr. Su hopes to make future champions of his eight-year-old twin girls.
They were also spotted in kindergarten.
Since then, they've succeeded in passing every test,
and today they're in the third grade of a gym school.
Su Ya and Su Lee are little prodigies who, from the age of five,
have won dozens of prizes and medals between them.
Their father religiously preserves all the certificates.
That one's for the asymmetric bars.
That one's for the free routine, and that one's for the beam.
Here are yet more prizes.
I believe in them.
They've always been persistent since they were very small,
it's in their characters.
They're not afraid of work, and they know how to deal with pressure.
In reality, the two little girls are exhausted by the daily exercises
and seem to be suffering from the excessive competition.
Do you ever get anxious?
Yes, we're afraid of not being the best, of not doing certain routines correctly.
How about you, sir?
Do you think they will be able to take the ever-increasing pressure?
For the moment, yes.
I'm not worried.
I know that in their school, they are the best in their age group.
Future champions, but at what cost?
The twins' school in Shanghai is called the Institute for Professional Sport.
It's one of the toughest establishments in the country.
Su Ya and Su Lee train more than four hours per day,
one hour more than in other gymnastic schools.
When you extend your leg, don't turn it inwards.
Stretch your calf.
That's it, good.
Stop. Clench your toes.
You, don't ease off the moment my back is turned.
In order to perform the routines set in competition,
their bodies must remain as slim as possible.
Their weight is checked every day.
The twins weigh 21 kilos and are one meter ten centimeters tall,
a perfect ratio for a little gymnast.
Those who grow too fast must watch out.
Asian morphology is well suited to gymnastics,
but they mustn't gain weight too fast.
If one of them grows too fast, what do you do?
She'll have to do more sport to lose weight.
To avoid weight gain,
the twins' diet is monitored noon and night.
The meals in the canteen are based on rice, fish, and meat.
High protein menus to develop muscles.
Sweets and desserts are out of the question here.
Su Ya and Su Lee have come up with a rational explanation.
No. We're not allowed to eat cakes.
Why is it forbidden?
Because the grownups are afraid we'll get fat.
Why are they afraid?
Because if we get too heavy, we won't be able to train.
Deprivation and exercise pushed to the limits of reason.
Twenty two, twenty three, twenty four.
Are these children taking excessive risks?
What are the long-term effects on their health?
In France, too, in certain specialist establishments,
students do gymnastics from the age of five or six.
However, the time they spend on training is much shorter,
five hours a week in the first or second grades, for example,
compared with 18 hours in China.
We showed this footage to a sports doctor, Dr. Jean-Pierre de Mondenard,
who has practiced near Paris for 30 years.
It's obvious that if you want to be competitive at the top level,
you have to acquire skills when very young.
That's when you can best master them.
So the Chinese are right?
Yes, they're right, but it's the amount that matters.
It's not natural for a child to do 20 hours of sport a week
at the age of six.
The body is building itself at that age.
Growth is being established, and that requires different mechanisms.
If you do highly intensive training, you disturb those mechanisms,
whether at the hormonal level or at the level of bone building.
So there have to be some risks.
The consequences of the children's intensive training
are often felt years later during adolescence.
Malformation of the vertebrae, chronic articular pains,
lesions in the bones.
After ten years in this school, this young girl of 15 has pains all over.
I've got pains in my hips and my ankles, my knees and my neck.
Sometimes it feels like my legs are anesthetized.
They're numb and it's hard for me to move them.
Are you afraid that you won't ever succeed in becoming a champion?
Yes, I'm afraid.
Do you regret having chosen this path?
Sometimes, yes, I regret it.
But now I can't go back.
Academically, I'm too far behind girls of my own age,
and my parents have sacrificed a lot for me.
In pain from the age of five,
and now with a broken body and morale at zero.
Perhaps this is what awaits twins Su Ya and Su Lee,
in whom their father placed so much hope.
All this so that one day,
it may be their turn to climb onto the highest step of the podium.