Slow News Day?

I might be the only American who would bother to read the following article in its entirety, but as someone who both rowed in college and lived in China (and drank Mengniu-brand milk), I'm in a unique demographic group.

China's New Reality Show Goes for the Gold

By MEI FONG
The Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2006; Page B1

BEIJING -- Wanting to be the next millionaire is so turn of the century. Now, a Chinese game show plans to pose an even more exclusive question: Who wants to be an Olympian?

China Central Television, China's normally staid TV monopoly, is launching a new kind of reality show that aims to pluck someone from the nation's 1.3 billion-strong population to become an Olympic athlete.

The position doesn't require brawn, speed or years of training -- just a healthy set of lungs and a good sense of direction. China's Olympics rowing team is searching for coxswains: two diminutive people with big voices who will steer the men's and women's teams of eight rowers in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The nationally televised search to find the lucky winners -- one male, one female -- will draw from parts of "Survivor," "The Apprentice" and "American Idol," as organizers seek to make stars of China's rowers, whose sport doesn't have much of a following in that country.

Called the "China Olympic Coxswain Competition," the show hopes to ride the popularity of reality TV shows in China, sparked by the stunning success of "Super Female Voice," a singing contest produced by provincial TV station Hunan Satellite that drew 400 million viewers to its 2005 finale. By comparison, "American Idol" drew 36 million viewers to its finale this year.