Now I am not to disprove the claim of Cordyceps being an energy booster, this might very well be so, many people who take Cs4 based Cordyceps preparations or the real thing tell me so, but claiming Cordyceps was the secret that enabled these Chinese athletes trained by Ma Junren [马俊仁], to perform absolutely astounding races. Especially the world records in 10,000 m and 3,000 m set by Wang Junxia; We are not talking about a tenth of a second faster or so, but 15 to 30 seconds shaved off from world records. For example, in 1993 Chinese women distance runners' success at the Asian Games in Beijing or the 5 medals won by them at the Track and Field World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. Wang Junxia, the most successful of Ma Junren's women runners, 10,000m world record was unbroken until 2016!
Anyway, the Western world was introduced to Cordyceps sinensis by the publicity around these astounding world record. This success raised many eyebrows, experts were thinking right away of steroids or other illegal doping, but some tests could not proof known illegal substances. Their coach Ma Junren [马俊仁], claimed the exceptional success was due to “intense high altitude training, turtle blood and Cordyceps sinensis”, both substances not restricted as a performance-enhancers. However, some years later Coach Ma was implicated for illegally doping his athletes. Remember the Chinese athletes, who never arrived for the 2000 Sydney Olympic games after a new doping test had been announced just days before the opening ceremony? The poor athletes not allowed to leave China for Sydney included six athletes of Ma Junren's team that was seven runners strong! More details of this incident were finally revealed in a new memoir by Yuan Weimin, a leading Chinese sports functionary. Even the Global Times, the Chinese government international English language newspaper launched to "balance" global reporting on China, reported on this incident when presenting Yuan's memoir in 2009.
However, on the Cordyceps dealer's web-pages you will not read that these Chinese women runners performed at this astonishing level at international competitions only for two years and their incredible world record times and medal sweeps were never matched again, although everyone by then knew it was just Cordyceps and turtle blood. But there is a Cordyceps dealer in the know that found out that after 1994 Ma's athletes "No longer [had] access to his secret Cordyceps recipe, all of the stars have lost their dominating athlete prowess." Interestingly, the turtle blood is never mentioned on the web pages of Cordyceps distributors. Maybe I should check the pages of turtle blood milkers to see what their claims are and check if they omit Cordyceps as part of Ma's secret world record soup?
Some might wonder what has become of coach Ma Junren? As indicate above in 1994 his world record stars left him and later on he was fired as coach, accused of being abusive in pursue of success for the athletes entrusted to him. It is reported he has turned his attention to subjects that can not voice their opposition to his troublesome training methods. Ma is now breeding Tibetan mastiffs who probably enjoy turtle chunks and a good dose of Cordyceps in their daily meal plan, but probably not the wild harvested Yartsa gunbu, but a cheaper Chinese, equivalent to Aloha's famous K9, read canine, Cordyceps.
Disclaimer: For this story I neither interviewed Ma Junren nor anyone else mentioned. I just stated my opinion.
Update: Ma Junren's doping was reported again by Dr. Xue Yinxian, a former Chinese government sport physician who is in opposition to doping and thus was ousted. See an interview in Sueddeutsche Zeitung October, 23, 2017 (in German).