Ma Junren (; born 28 October 1944) is a

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

track coach. He trained several world-class middle and long distance female runners including

Wang Junxia Wang Junxia (; born 9 January 1973) is a Chinese former long-distance runner who is the current world record holder at 3,000 meters. She also held the world record for the 10,000 meters for 23 years, between 1993 and ...

and

Qu Yunxia Qu Yunxia (; born 25 December 1972) is a Chinese Olympic athlete who specialised in the 1500 metres. At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, she won a bronze medal in 1500 m. On 11 September 1993, she set the world record in the 1,500 metre ...

, who hold several world records. He and his pupils were also called the Ma family army () for their stunning performance in domestic and international events. Starting as a track coach in a remote rural middle school, he adopted a systematic, allegedly scientific training strategy, which includes encouragement, nutritional tonics using

Traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medicine, alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence ...

and track training balancing stamina and

speed In kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a non-negative scalar quantity. Intro ...

. There have been suggestions that he has employed

performance-enhancing drugs Performance-enhancing substances (PESs), also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. Many substances, such as anabolic steroids, can be used to improve at ...

as part of his training regime. He has strongly denied this, although six of his athletes were among 27 competitors dropped from China's team for the Sydney Olympic games after failing blood tests. As a result, he was dropped as a coach from the Chinese Olympic team. Following this episode, he and his entire team of athletes disappeared for several months, fueling further suspicion. His training regimes were reputed to be extremely rigorous, involving extremely high mileage (in excess of a

marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...

per day) and run at high altitude. Ma is also controversial for his

temper tantrums A tantrum, angry outburst, temper tantrum, lash out, meltdown, fit, or hissy fit is an emotional outburst, usually associated with those in emotional distress. It is typically characterized by stubbornness, crying, screaming, violence, defian ...

. He has admitted to physically beating his athletes on occasion. His original squad fired him for many reasons, including the late allocation of sports bonuses. Ma retired as deputy director of the

Liaoning ) , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = Clockwise: Mukden Palace in Shenyang, Xinghai Square in Dalian, Dalian coast, Yalu River at Dandong , image_map = Liaoning in China (+all claims hatched).svg , ...

Provincial Sports Bureau on 1 December 2004. He is recently interested in fostering world-class

mastiff A mastiff is a large and powerful Dog type, type of dog. Mastiffs are among the largest dogs, and typically have a short Coat (dog), coat, a long low-set tail and large feet; the skull is large and bulky, the muzzle broad and short (brachycephal ...

Allegations of doping & IAAF investigation

News Reports surfaced February 2016 of a Chinese journalist who claimed 10 of the country's Olympic champions and world record holders have said they were part of a state-sponsored doping program, in a letter apparently from

, with nine other signatories, that alleged that the athletes had been forced to take drugs. Report initially surfaced via

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

Sports and

Sohu Sohu, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet company headquartered in the Sohu Internet Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing. Sohu and its subsidiaries offer advertising, a search engine (Sogou.com), on-line multiplayer gaming (ChangYou.com) and other se ...

Sports and reported by China Central Television (

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

) and throughout Chinese state media.

International Association of Athletics Federations World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF, is the international governing body for the sport of athletics, coverin ...

(IAAF) subsequently opened investigation into the allegations.

References

External links

Ma's army on the march again

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ma, Junren 1944 births Living people Chinese athletics coaches Sportspeople from Liaoyang