Cinese Volleyball Team Stymies Itself page

[Lewis]

Fearing tainted meat, China's women's volleyball team has stuck to a strict vegetarian diet for the last three weeks, which the team's coach is now blaming for his athletes' abysmal performance.

Apparently, farmers dosing pigs up with the chemical clenbuterol -- to produce leaner meat -- is so common in China that the team avoids meat unless at their training camp where they have facilities to test the meat for contamination with clenbuterol. Their problem is that it's banned as a performance enhancing substance.

However, unfortuantely for them a vegetarian diet is a performance de-enhancing substance:

�They have showed significant decline in their strength and fitness� coach Yu Juemin said of his squad

“Veggie” diet blamed for poor performance of China’s women volleyball team — MercoPress

[wiltondeportes]

Sucks to be you!

[sakura_girl]

Sad face. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that they screwed up so badly in women gymnastics, too. Such a large disappointment to see that drop in performance.