In 1983 the National Games were held in Shanghai, and Gérard Rancinan had the incredible opportunity to observe from up close the Chinese athletes preparing for the Olympics. In stadiums and training camps, he captured the expression of pain and physical effort, the grace and beauty of bodies moving through air and water. These portraits of “timid, hesitant, febrile future champions,” as he called them, would earn Rancinan the first of his six World Press Photo Awards
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