Best in the World: The Chinese Short Track Juggernaut

From Olympic Gold-Medals to Raising Unbreakable Youth Athletes in Calgary

February 2006

I still remember the sideways Vancouver rain stabbing my face as I dragged my suitcase toward the Air China gate. February in that city is a special kind of misery—the thermometer lies, says –1°C, but the damp cold crawls inside your bones and sets up camp. I was 25, terrified, and had exactly zero Mandarin. Not even “hello.”

As the plane lifted off, it finally hit me: I had said yes to a phone call that lasted four seconds.
“Do you want to coach speed skaters in China?”
“Yes.”
Click.

That was it. No contract, no details, no safety net. Just a reckless heartbeat and a one-way ticket to Beijing.

February 2010
Four years later I sat in the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver watching the seventh Chinese women’s gold medal ceremony of those Olympics. The anthem played again. The flags rose again. My athletes stood on the top step again.

And somewhere around medal number five, I realized something strange: even Olympic glory can become routine when it’s built on a foundation most people never see.

November 2025
Last week I rewatched Jiro Dreams of Sushi with my 3 year old daughter asleep on my chest. I hadn’t seen it in years, and the tears caught me off guard. Because when Jiro speaks quietly about falling in love with your work—about dedicating your life to something bigger than yourself—I don’t see a sushi counter in a Tokyo subway station anymore.

I see Li Yan.

The first time I met Coach Li Yan she looked me over like livestock at auction. I had just flown 14 hours, hadn’t slept, and smelled like airplane coffee. She was barely five feet tall, dressed head-to-toe in national team red, and her eyes could freeze fire.

“Too young,” she said in perfect English.
Then she banished me to Changchun—a frozen city in the far north—to coach the B-team.

Message received: Earn the right or disappear.

Those next eight months were the hardest, loneliest, and most important of my life. I learned Mandarin from taxi drivers, security guards and students. I learned that 90-day contracts feel exactly like a loaded gun pressed to your temple. And I learned fast what actually moves the needle with elite athletes and what is just pretty Instagram garbage.

Because when your job is literally on the line every three months, you stop caring about likes and start caring about results that show up in two weeks or less.

Everything good I know about coaching I stole from her.

Everything I teach at Jungle Athletics in Calgary is still filtered through the lens of Li Yan and Jiro Ono—two masters who never met but somehow speak the same language.

Here are the six principles carved into the walls of every Jungle facility (and into my heart):

1. Passion — Fall in Love With the Work (Even When It Doesn’t Love You Back)

Jiro says: “You must love your work. Never complain. Dedicate your life to mastering your skill.”
He never said “do what you love.” He said love what you do.
There’s a difference.
Love is a decision you make every single morning when the alarm goes off and your body begs for five more minutes.
My athletes don’t get to pick perfect days. Neither do I. Neither will my son or daughter.
We choose love anyway.

2. Repetition & Progression — It’s Not Every Four Years, It’s Every Day

Wang Meng—four Olympic golds, untouchable—once told a reporter the secret to Chinese dominance:
“We just repeat the same thing every day and improve bit by bit. It’s not every four years. It’s every day.”

That sentence is tattooed on the inside of my skull.
Muscle memory isn’t built in explosive moments. It’s forged in the quiet, boring, unglamorous minutes when no one is filming.

3. Consistency — The Quiet Separator

I will never forget a sweltering summer training camp in 2009. Wang Meng—already the best in the world—was doing banded crossovers the length of a soccer field. Legs on fire. Lungs screaming.
Li Yan crouched beside her the entire time, matching her stride-for-stride, refusing to let the standard drop even one millimeter.

Wang Meng had nothing left to prove.
And still she refused to coast.
That image lives in me.
Talent gets you noticed. Consistency gets you remembered.
Consistency wins when talent quits.

4. Simplicity — Less Is More

Dr. Dave Smith once summed up an entire Olympic gold-medal program in three words: “Less is more.”
At Jungle we don’t chase shiny new exercises. We chase mastery of the few things that actually matter.
Awkward, weak, uncoordinated kids walk in.
Powerful, confident, explosive athletes walk out.
The program isn’t complicated.
It’s just non-negotiable.

5. Dedication — The Long Transformation

John Meenagh was a soft 220 lb 15-year-old when he started training in my one-car-garage “Jungle 1.”
Quiet. Determined. Zero quit in him.
Three years later he stepped on the field for Queen’s University at 275 lbs of grown-man power.
Same kid. Different human.
That’s what dedication looks like when it’s given time and love.

6. Kaizen — Tiny Improvements, Every Single Day

In 2008 I used to pass a crumbling gymnastics hall in Kunming every dawn. A little girl—maybe nine years old—was always on the beam. Alone. No coach. Just her and the sunrise.
Four years later I watched Deng Linlin win Olympic gold in London.
Same girl.
Every day mattered.

Even on the night Wang Meng shattered the world record and won gold in Vancouver, Li Yan was still in her hotel room at 2 a.m. looping the race footage, whispering, “…one small adjustment and she’ll go faster next time.”

That’s the Jungle way.
That’s the way I coach.
That’s the way I try to live.
And someday, when my daughter is old enough to read this, I hope she feels it too.

This isn’t theory.
This is what I lived.
This is what still keeps me up at night—excited for the next rep, the next kid who walks through the door ready to fall in love with the process.

If you’re a parent in Calgary and you want your child to learn what real mastery feels like—if you’re tired of the hype and ready for the work—we’re here.

Jungle Athletics
Built on lessons I learned half a world away, from two of the toughest, kindest, most brilliant human beings I’ve ever met.

Every day.
No shortcuts.
Just love.

— Coach (the kid Li Yan almost sent home)

P.S. If you want to go deeper:

• Watch Jiro Dreams of Sushi (and cry a little)

• Watch the short documentary “Everyday” about Li Yan

• Then come train with us and feel it for yourself.