"I do not want to work as an athlete, but as an athlete here I have no freedom to choose my future," Yang said, speaking through the team's official interpreter. "As a child, I didn't learn anything but sport, and now what do I do? I can't do anything else. I have my own dreams, but it is very difficult. I don't have the foundation to make them come true."
Officials refused to let Yang retire, even after he won Olympic gold in the C-2 500-meter race with Meng Guanliang at the Athens Games in 2004. He described how they had threatened to withhold his retirement payment if he did not compete through the Beijing Games.
"It is not possible to survive without those benefits," said Yang, whose parents say he receives a monthly stipend of $230 and performance-based bonuses.
Pressure to remain an athlete weighs on him. His father and sister received white-collar jobs because of his celebrity. His mother stopped working. They all moved into Yang's apartment from their two-room cottage. Team, province and local government officials receive a percentage of Yang's winnings and a cut of his endorsement deal with Nike.
But Yang, who trains seven hours every day, is sick of the exhaustion brought on by canoeing, he said. His mother and father, Yang Yixiang, revealed that their son had a liver disease that caused extreme fatigue. Neither Yang nor his parents named the disease, but they said it could shorten his life. Chinese water sports officials said that Yang has had hepatitis since birth, but they could not say which form he has.
