National Winter Games to kick off without Olympic champ Wang Meng
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Xinhua, January 3, 2012
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The 12th edition of China's National Winter Games will raise its curtain in Changchun, the capital city of Jilin Province on Tuesday night. |
The 12th edition of China's National Winter Games will raise its curtain in Changchun, the capital city of Jilin Province on Tuesday night, while the four-time Winter Olympic champion Wang Meng is set to miss the Chinese top level multi-sport winter tournament for serving a domestic suspension.
After Jilin witnessed the launching of the inaugural National Winter Games in 1959, it will be the fifth time for the northeastern province to host the quadrennial winter sports gala.
The Games will include five sports, 12 discipline, 105 events, with the skating events to be held in Changchun and the skiing events in the Beidahu skiing resort in Jilin City.
The Games will feature some 1,400 athletes from 44 delegations, including delegation from China's Hong Kong and Macao.
However, among the most-ever participants, China's most decorated Winter Olympic athlete Wang Meng was not in the list as the 26-year-old has been suspended under an interim castigation following an incident at a training camp based in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao in last July and was later expelled from the Chinese national short track speedskating team in August.
Known for her fiery temper, Wang punched her team manager Wang Chunlu after being criticized for failing to return on time to the camp after a night out with five other teammates.
After the brawl, the bad-tempered Wang, who was said to be visibly drunk at the time of the incident, smashed furniture in her dormitory and hurt her hands before being sent to hospital to get stitched up.
This is not the first time that Wang Meng has landed herself in trouble. She was expelled from the national team for six months in 2007 after criticizing her coach's tactics at the Asian Winter Games.
Earlier in June, 2011, Wang again hit the headlines after she and her teammates clashed with security guards who accused them of making too much noise during a night out in the southwestern Chinese city of Lijiang.
Wang Meng is China's most crowned Winter Olympic athlete, winning three gold medals at the 2010 Vancouver Games and one gold, one silver and one bronze in Turin 2006.
And she beat tennis star Li Na -- winner of last year's French open -- to the title of the female athlete of the year in 2010.
In spite of Wang's absence, the 12th National Games will not be lack of big names. Olympic gold medallist Zhou Yang and world champion Liang Wenhao will be leading the 95-member Changchun delegation in short-track speedskating.
Zhou Yang, born in 1991, made a perfect Olympic debut, beating three South Koreans to take the gold in the women's 1,500 meters final in Vancouver. She also helped the Chinese team win the 3,000m relay in a new world record time. And the 20-year-old Liang Wenhao won the title of the men's 500-meter short track speed skating at the 2010 World Championships in Sofia.
The Heilongjiang delegation, which has sent 168 athletes to Changchun, will be spearheaded by figure skating world titlists Pang Qing/Tong Jian, Olympic runners-up Zhang Dan/Zhang Hao and Wang Bingyu, skipper of Chinese women's national curling team which claimed title in the 2009 worlds.
The opening ceremony of the 12th National Winter Games will be held in the Changchun Wunhua Gymnasium. And a virtual flame will replace real flame to be symbolically lit as technicians to simulate flame at the top of the 12-meter-high cauldron, which will be a demonstration of the organizers' commitment to stage an environment-friendly, thrifty and harmonious games.
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