AFTER retiring from their sporting careers - in which they may have been engaged since childhood - the 20-something-year-old athletes have to face the problem of stepping into a totally different profession that they know nothing about.

"It's tough for them to transfer to a new life," said Zhang Lin, professor of Shanghai Institute of Physical Education, a former table tennis player.

Government regulations state that the State Sport General Administration must assign each athlete a new job after their retirement. According to the Nanfang Daily, a prominent Chinese newspaper, there are about 14,000 registered athletes in China today and each year about 3,000 of them need to be given a new career opportunity.

But in Shanghai, 30 per cent of retired athletes cannot find work, Zhang said.

Most began training in their chosen sport when very young and were not able to obtain the education available to their peers attending normal schools and it is hard for them to find a decent job.

In Shanghai today, three choices are offered by the local sport administration to athletes who are preparing to retire - to find a job by themselves with each receiving 50,000 yuan (US$6,038) as a subsidy, to accept whatever job the administration assigns without any subsidy, and the third is to receive a minimum salary from the administration (about several hundred yuan a month) while they look for a part-time job.

The sudden death of Cai Li, the Asian Games weight-lifting champion, last year has brought the difficult life of an ex-athlete to the attention of the general public. He worked as a gatekeeper, earning several hundred yuan a month and was suffering from various illnesses, some of which were due to the sport he had followed for many years.

Other retired athletes have had comparatively better career choices - they have been able to start their own business because they had accumulated enough savings or they could continue to work in their sport as coaches.

Successful return

Cao Yanhua, a legendary champion who won four world table tennis tournaments between 1979 and 1985, said she thought she would never want to have anything more to do with pingpong after she resigned from the national team. She had been practising her table tennis skills from the age of six.

She was tired of the game and internal conflicts within the national team and felt frustrated about what she was to do with her future.

However, in 1999, 14 years after her retirement, she was back in the sport but this time as a business person. She opened her own table tennis school for children in Shanghai, her hometown.

During her 14-year absence from table tennis, together with her husband, another table tennis player, she was hired by a Japanese company who wanted them to endorse sporting equipment. She later opened her own restaurant in Germany while her husband worked for a German pingpong club.

She was "lucky" in that she was paid well by her foreign employers but she also found that without table tennis, she was nothing.

In 1995, she was invited back to China by Cai Zhenhua, her former teammate and now chief coach of China's national table tennis team, to watch the 43rd World Cup held in Tianjin, North China.

"I began to get the idea that I could develop a business based on pingpong," Cao said. "At the time, Shanghai was slipping back in pingpong unlike the previous decade when the city was sending many outstanding players into the national team."

So, in 1999 she opened her first training school for children in the city with only eight students for the first semester. Her wide popularity helped attract more students and now she has opened her second school.

"But at the moment I am not making any profit. I know it takes time," she said. "Although I didn't get the same education as other people in ordinary schools when I was young, table tennis players are smart, a requirement of the sport. On the other hand, I have come to know many people through table tennis and those connections helped me a lot in developing my business."

At the same time, Cao also was managing another company that specialized in trading to support her schools.

Cao employed qualified coaches in boarding schools set up to train students from all over the country who were eager to win fame as champion table tennis players.

"Not every student was good enough to be selected for the national team though I think several of them are good enough to become world champions. I have to think out other ways for the students to be able to continue with the sport," she said.

Cao contacted foreign clubs and sent her students to some of the clubs overseas.

"I certainly didn't choose the best students but medium-level ones because they may confront our Chinese players in the future. I don't want to see us beaten by them."

Cao insisted on not changing her nationality when she was in Germany as many other athletes working abroad do after retiring.

"I am always a Chinese," Cao said.

Young coach

Retiring from Shenhua Football Team in 1999, Zhu Jiong picked up a job as a coach in the Shenhua Football School.

Zhu, now in his early 30s, was once a star for millions of football fans, and was also known as "Sapper" because of his diligence when on the field.

However, he was reluctant to talk about his early retirement from the sport.

When the topic shifted to his current work, he brightened up immediately.

"After all, I had to find a balance in my own way," the young coach said.

In his eyes, to coach a group of teenagers is just as hard a nut to crack as any other work.

"It is difficult to get children of around 15 to adapt to an atmosphere which is built on co-operation and teamwork," he said.

In addition to football theory, Zhu has had to refer to books on child growth and child psychology.

"We not only get them to do what we ask, we also must let them know why they should do this," he said. "In fact, many things that seem to be very tiny are most important."

He cited as an example that during daily training, there had to be someone who would fetch all the necessary equipment and someone who took the responsibility of sending it back.

"Some children could do the work-out on their own and others may not realize this, yet we coaches ought to make them realize that football is teamwork," he said.

Zhu himself did not see the point of all this until he became an instructor.

"In the past, I did not know why we were required to do something trivial such as put our belongings in order," he said. "It was important to cultivate the character of a good football player."

In addition to instructing his students he still, from time to time, has to encourage them when they lose a game. That is because it is an open secret in the sport that in many cases, some teenage football players are in fact older than they say they are. The media has long criticized this deception.

"It is difficult for our boys to play against such alleged 'peers'," he said frowning.

It can be a difficult task to explain this to young boys who have always been taught to play fairly from the day they took up football.

However, it is matter of joy for Zhu every time he observes his boys progressing in the sport.

"They may pass the ball more accurately and co-operate more in tactics but the final outcome cannot be predicted."