Girls groomed to award Olympic medals

“This is a huge opportunity for them. The Olympics will put them in front of the world’s audience and lead to a lifetime of fortune,” Li said.

That is, if they make the grade.

Not unlike the more than 800,000 Chinese who have applied for only 100,000 Olympic volunteer positions on offer, the competition to become one of the coveted 380-odd medal presenters was cut-throat.

The 34 hopefuls at BFAS were up against specialist dance schools, universities and possibly winners of regional contests across the country, Li said.

Applicants also faced biological constraints.

“Girls must be at least 1.63 meters tall... There are no real weight restrictions but they mustn’t be too heavy,” Li said, citing selection criteria from the Cultural Activities Department of Beijing’s Organizing Committee for the Games.

While Zhao Dongming, the department’s director, said the guidelines were so applicants could “fit into the uniforms being provided,” rights groups have cried discrimination.

“In planning the Olympics, officials at the highest levels of government should publicly condemn discrimination rather than reinforce harmful stereotypes and unfair hiring practices,” Brad Adams, Asia Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The perfect smile

Further exacting standards were demanded from BFAS’s students, some of whom attended an intensive summer training camp in Beijing’s northern outskirts, sleeping in dormitories and rising early to take classes in etiquette and deportment.

Apart from common-sense communication tips, such as looking directly at someone while talking to them, students are also informed the perfect smile consists of “only showing the eight top teeth,” according to 17-year-old student Li Bogeng, who hoped to mix cocktails for IOC officials.

For Li Miaomiao, who stands at 1.73 meters and unblinkingly rattles off her vital statistics when asked, the perfect smile comes naturally — after having practiced for hours in the mirror.

It doubtless helped Li become one of only seven girls chosen from dozens of applicants to present medals to winning boxers at an Olympic test event in Beijing last November.

“I have an air of elegance now, and my bearing has changed through this training program,” she said.

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