Too fast, too furious and too exciting to miss.

With competition heating up on a revamped World Tour, China's elite short-track speed skaters have laced up for a challenging new season as they step up a gear to prepare for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

With a strong roster of Olympic and world champions, as well as rising young stars, Team China is gearing up for glory in the new ISU World Tour season. WEI XIAOHAO/CHINA DAILY

Longing for the race weekends full of drama, speed and razor-thin winning margins on ice? The re-branded International Skating Union Short Track World Tour has guaranteed that the most intense skating discipline will only return fiercer, tighter and intriguingly more unpredictable when the 2024-25 season's six-leg series kicks off on Friday in Montreal, Canada.

Team China, officially known as the "Chinese Loongs" under the new branding, has braced itself for an elevated level of competition on track, with all the world's major contenders eagerly motivated to sharpen their craft in the penultimate season before the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

"Our ultimate goal will always be Milan-Cortina 2026. This season we have to adapt to the new format of the World Tour, pick up the pace and step up a notch in our preparations for the Olympics," Team China's manager Liu Chenyu said last week in Beijing during an open training session.

"Of course, we will strive for the best results we can on the tour, but our focus will be locked on bringing the best out of ourselves at the Olympics."

Formerly known as the World Cup series, the revamped tour features a streamlined program with four individual events in each gender at each stop cut into three, and each ice-cleaning break between races significantly shortened to accommodate a new broadcasting timetable.

Following the opening two legs in Montreal and Salt Lake City, Utah (Nov 1-3), the tour resumes with two Asian stops in Beijing (Dec 6-8) and Seoul (Dec 13-15), followed by a holiday break before returning to action in Tilburg, the Netherlands (Feb 7-9).

The all-important season finale in Milan (Feb 14-16) will offer the world's best an invaluable first test at the rink that will host the Olympic races in one year's time.

After a solid summer training program and two domestic trials, Team China has announced a 12-strong roster for the new season, led by men's reigning 500m Olympic champion Liu Shaoang, men's 1,500m gold medalist Lin Xiaojun (Pyeongchang 2018), defending 1,500m world champion Sun Long and women's young stars Wang Ye and Gong Li.

Boasting a blend of youth and experience, well-prepared and physically fresh, Team China is determined to blaze across the ice.

"With the races becoming more competitive, and all our strong opponents ready to go, we should focus on the biggest challenge, which is to trust ourselves and overcome our own limitations to deliver the best performance on ice," said Team China head coach Zhang Jing.

"The stronger we are, the weaker our opponents become," said Zhang, who took over her native country's national program after Beijing 2022, following a 10-year stint with the Hungarian team.

"Technically and physically, we've done pretty solid preparation in the offseason. For our athletes, it's more important for them to stay mentally strong and sharp, growing their confidence by racing toe-to-toe against the world's best and prevailing in the fight."

Fewer events at each stop, for sure, will bring out some extra fight from all the elite skaters, making each race more intense, more physical, thus an ideal warm-up for the Olympics, Zhang suggested.

A mix of familiar faces and surging youngsters, such as Xandra Velzeboer, the anchor leg on the gold-winning Dutch 3,000m women's relay team at Beijing 2022, Canada's men's 1,000m world champion William Dandjinou, and Kim Gil-li from traditional powerhouse South Korea, are expected to provide a heated challenge to Team China.

A high-altitude summer camp in Livigno and Bormio, Italy, has helped Chinese skaters toughen themselves up, though, with an intense road cycling program pushing their aerobic endurance to the next level.

"As I grow older, I've realized that to maintain endurance is quite difficult compared to the past. But, this summer's training has helped me get into better shape and enhance my strength for longer races, giving me greater confidence to compete for medals in the 1,500m event as well," said Lin, formerly known as Lim Hyo-jun in South Korea, the country of his birth.

Joint practice sessions at the Italy camp with national teams from the host, France and Australia also offered Zhang's athletes some much-needed international exposure, the coach noted.

"Our athletes were able to observe the training routines and habits of top international athletes, while also adapting to local conditions, climate and diet in Italy, which is quite helpful," said Zhang.

As the most decorated winter sports program in China, the short-track speed skating squad has contributed a total of 12 Olympic gold medals to the country's all-time haul of 22 since its Winter Games debut in 1980.

The appointment of Zhang after Beijing 2022, and the introduction of naturalized athletes, such as Lin, and the Hungarian-born brothers Sandor Liu Shaolin and Liu Shaoang, have heralded a new era for the program entering the 2026 Olympic cycle.

"It will be a very important season for us with the Olympics fast approaching. I've set lofty goals for myself for sure, but I'd rather keep them inside, and only speak with my performances on ice," said Liu Shaoang.

In the 2023-24 season, the new-look Team China bagged seven gold medals from the World Cup circuit, before sweeping four titles to become the most decorated team at the world championships in the Netherlands, showing a glimpse of the full strength it is set to unleash at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

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