Excessive Training?

If you were a parent and your child came to you expressing her aspirations to swim the English Channel, what would you do to help her? The answer was pretty simple for a Chinese father: bind her hands and feet and make her swim for 3 hours! WHAT??! Huang Li's father promises that he stays close to her side and would never put her life in jeopardy, but that sounds more like torture than training to me. Apparently, Huang Li's swim is the 2nd time she has gathered media attention in recent months. Last summer, 8-year old Huang ran 2,212 miles in 55 days. Her father followed behind her on a motor scooter clocking and recording every mile. I am not a parent and I am not anyone to judge a parent, but this just sounds crazy! Isn't there some other more traditional way of training that does not involve binding hands and feet? I can't imagine my father tying me up and making me swim for hours, even if it was my idea and was supposed to help me achieve my goal. She's 8-years old; Can she really be responsible for her father's training techniques?