Yao Ming must be thinking his broken left toe isn't entirely a bad thing. The injury got the multi-million dollar NBA star off a week of pain, hardship, humiliation, sleep deprivation and mind-numbing ideology sessions.
His national teammates were not so fortunate. When the men's basketball team gathered last week in Beijing to start a two-month training camp in preparation for the World Championships in Japan in August, the first thing basketball officials decided to do was to take the elite athletes down a peg or two.
Intent on breaking the men down before they build them back up again, they were sent off for a dose of military life at an army training camp on the outskirts of Beijing.
Special fatigues were made up for the gangly men, most of whom stand well over two metres, but even the extra-long trouser legs still flapped half-mast in the wind. The 2.13m Tang Zhengdong, just back from trials with the LA Lakers, was one of the many who struggled to squeeze the peaked cap over his skull.
'Well, it's not because your brain is too big,' one of his teammates taunted. But while the caps were problematic, the boots were total non-starters.
Army regulation footwear doesn't come in the size 17s and 18s the players needed, and officials feared if they got extra-large heavy duty boots made up the players would barely be able to lift their feet off the ground.
