In September 2012, the Jing­mei Girls’ High School tug-of-war team traveled to Switzerland to represent Taiwan in the world championships, walking away with both the championship and the open 500-kilogram division title.

The good news quickly got back to Taiwan, and former national team coach Cai San­xiong immediately called ­Zhang Jin­feng, tug-of-war coach at Nan­tou’s Hong­ren Junior High School.

This was because of the nine team members in Switzerland—eight starters, one reserve—five were Hong­ren alumnae.

With limited resources at their disposal, Hongren Junior High School’s tug-of-war team has had to rely on homegrown methods such as pulling against a tree to hone their skills.

Before its tug-of-war team, Hong­ren Junior High was more known for its prowess at tchouk­ball, having taken several national titles in the sport. Their shift to tug of war goes back to the Jiji Earthquake of 1999.

In that quake, the school—located close to the epicenter—was struck by jolts of intensities up to seven, virtually leveling it.

Two months after the quake, around when the school had been scheduled to have its sports day, the school’s playing fields were still being used as a refuge for quake survivors, leaving the students nowhere to hold the event.

Seeing the students with nowhere to vent the emotions that had built up after witnessing such a disaster, physical education teacher ­Zhang Jin­­feng decided to seek the school’s permission to hold an event that required no particular facilities and would help bring the students together—a tug-of-war contest.

Unfortunately, the first time the school held their tug-of-war competition, an eighth-grader who suffered a congenital heart condition that the school was not aware of went into shock from the exertion and was rushed to hospital. Tragically, the student never regained consciousness.

The tug-of-war team from Nantou’s Hongren Junior High School is proving the cradle of promising Taiwanese tug-of-war talent.

That lesson did not go unheeded in the school’s future attempts to develop the sport.

When formally establishing their own tug-of-war team, they set strict health and physical fitness standards for aspiring competitors. Later they took a portion of the school’s funds for post-quake reconstruction and used them to secure a special tug-of-war machine, aiming to help improve the safety of the participants while training.

Zhang, who has remained the driving force behind the school’s tug-of-war efforts, says the reason the school was willing to go all-out to develop the sport was in part the waning popularity of tchouk­ball and the resultant lack of a channel for their athletically promising students to go on to a standout high school.

With tug of war not requiring any particular kind of venue or that much in the way of resources, and only needing participants willing to endure the hard physical training, it was the perfect place for Hong­ren to turn.

However, their early forays into the sport did not go as hoped, with them placing somewhere near the bottom in the national tournament. “We had only been training the students’ physical strength through things like sitting in tires in pairs and pulling against each other, or pulling against a tree that died in the quake,” recalls Zhang.

A persistent sort, ­Zhang stuck to it, using after-school time to attend training courses for tug-of-war coaches and devising new ways of training the students in the give and take of tug of war. Gradually, they began to improve.

Having won a bronze in carpentry in the 28th WorldSkills Competition in his youth, ­Zhang set about building the team’s secret weapons. He assembled a “solo tug-of-war machine” out of cables, pulleys, and concrete blocks, and a “tug-of-war track” using lumber and plywood. Thanks to these, the students saw rapid improvement.

The track has rails across the top, and when a competitor digs their feet into the rails, combined with pulling on the machine, this gives the feeling of being outdoors, digging into the mud in a real tug of war against real people. “With that track, rain or shine we could always hone our skills indoors.”

In 2006, under Zhang’s leadership, every weekend the team traveled to Nan­tou Senior High School, some 40 kilometers away, for special training. This paid off, as they ultimately walked away from the national tournament as champions, as well as receiving an invitation to a friendly match in Japan.

Once they’d finally found their footing, the Hong­ren team began to go from strength to strength, with graduating team members getting offered placements at good high schools, including Tai­pei’s Jing­mei Girls’ High, Tai­chung’s Dali Senior High, and Nan­tou Senior High, where they continued refining their tug-of-war skills.

Guo Sheng, coach of Jing­mei Girls’ High’s tug-of-war team, says that after having been through disaster, perhaps the kids of Hongren had learned to deal with hardship, and thus they came at any challenge with a never-say-die attitude.

“Tug of war isn’t easy, and if you’re not the sort who’s willing to put their body on the line and become part of a team unit, it can be hard to get anywhere. For that reason, I don’t try and force students into training, and if someone wants to leave the team, I completely respect their decision,” says Zhang.

As a result, those who stick with Hong­ren’s tug-of-war team tend mostly to do so through tremendous inner strength.

Tian Jia­rong, currently a 10th grader at Jing­mei, and her sister Tian Jia­xin, an eighth grader at Hong­ren, have both caught the tug-of-war bug. Their mother laughs that whenever their grandmother sees the girls’ calloused hands she asks, with genuine concern, “How could a girl let her hands get so ugly?”

Regardless what their grandmother may think, the two sisters have already fallen hard for tug of war, not particularly caring about the superficial damage. “Once, when Jia­rong was at Hong­ren, she acted up at practice and the coach banned her from practice for a week. That whole week, it was like someone had just flicked the off switch on her soul,” says the girls’ mother. Now everyone in the family is a fan of the girls, and with their encouragement the sisters have gone on to countless victories.

Even with Hongren’s growing recognition and fame, they’re still quite a way from competing alongside their former team members on the international stage, although they are certainly amongst the strongest schools at the national level. Not long after the Fall 2012 semester started, for example, they participated in the Ministry of Education’s tug-of-war tournament for junior and senior high schools, walking away with golds in the boys’ 500-kg, girls’ 440-kg and 480-kg, and mixed 500-kg classes. In November, they competed in the National Sports Affairs Council Cup, from which competitors for the World Games are selected, and came out champions in the junior-high boys’ 500-kg class.

Today, Zhang also helps with coaching teams at Nantou’s Nanguan Elementary School and Yunlin’s Guanxing Elementary School. “No matter the sport, we need to cultivate the next generation, particularly in a sport still in its infancy here like tug of war. Only if we can keep bringing in new blood will we really be able to reach the top ranks worldwide, and then to stay there,” says Zhang earnestly.