AMATEUR HITMAKER

Meet the man behind the surprise package in the men's volleyball competitions at the recent national games

On a humid afternoon at China's 15th National Games held in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, in November last year, amid the polished ranks of professional youth squads, one team looked unmistakably out of place. Their uniforms were newer than their reputation, their accents unmistakably from the far north, and their faces — still boyish — betrayed a nervous energy more often found in classrooms than stadium tunnels. They were students from Qiqihar No. 1 High School, and they had just done something no one expected: finished fourth in the men's under-18 volleyball tournament, the best result Heilongjiang province had achieved in the event in 66 years.

Standing a few steps behind them, half-smiling and half-reproving, was Bao Changlin. An "amateur" coach only in the bureaucratic sense, the 55-year-old is the unlikely architect of one of the most improbable stories in recent Chinese sports.