Claiming their first Winter Olympic gold medal from short track
speed skating at Salt Lake City four years ago, the Chinese, who
enjoyed their strongest showing ever in the Summer Olympics in
Athens in 2004 with 32 gold medals, are expecting a breakthrough on
snow at the upcoming Turin Winter Olympic Games.
The record 76-athlete-team for Turin, for the first time ever
has an overwhelming number of snow event competitors compared to
ice event competitors.
China's first Olympic medal on snow was won by Xu Nannan at 1998
Nagano Winter Olympics, and the women's freestyle aerials team have
big hopes to repeat that this year.
Made up of a group of world cup series stage champions, the team
is confident of victory at present.
"Our team is strong as a whole and no matter who misses the
Games, we are confident of good results at Turin," said Li Nina,
China's first freestyle skiing aerials world champion.
Since Xu has recently returned to the event following a severe
injury and Guo Xinxin has managed movements with almost the highest
difficulty level in the world, China will be able to send its
strongest ever aerials team to Turin this time.
The fourth member of the team is yet to be announced and may be
one of three young girls Zhang Xin, Wang Jiao and Cheng Shuang, all
of whom have achieved the top three positions during the world cup
series.
The team also promised that they would not repeat the errors
like four years ago. At 2002 Salt Lake City's Winter Olympic Games,
Xu, the 1998 silver medallist, missed out on the podium due to
faults that occurred because of the huge amount of pressure on her
for the event.
"At the last Games, all the pressure was on Xu alone. But this
time, all of us will share the pressure together," said Li. "We
will compete for gold in a more relaxed manner."
Besides the freestyle aerials event, China also has eyes on
better results for the biathlon.
With Chinese athletes reaching the top three positions at last
season's world cup series and 2005 Biathlon World Championships,
China is now more confident in this event.
"The best result that China achieved in this event is fifth and
our women's team is strong at present," said Wang Yitao, secretary
general of the Chinese team. "We hope for better results than at
the last Games."
Take part for experience
As for the other snow events, China is so weak that their aim of
participating in the Games is merely to practice and gain
experience for the future Games.
"Our level in some snow events, like snowboarding, ski jumping,
Alpine skiing and cross country skiing, is pretty low," said Wang.
"We just want these teams to practice and raise their level."
Wang hopes that China will be able to catch up countries strong
in these events as soon as possible and all the four teams have
been sent to train abroad in recent years and some foreign coaches
have been invited over.
These efforts have helped achieve some satisfactory results.
"Having only started in China three years ago, the snowboard
half pipe event has developed quickly," said Wang. "It has become
more and more popular in China now and Pan Lei claimed the silver
medal at last year's Universiade."
Pan and Sun Zhifeng, 14, the youngest athletes in the whole
delegation, will make the Olympic debut in the event for China.
"With increased popularity in the sport, Alpine skiing has
significantly developed in recent years," said Wang. "We hope that
our athletes will finish top among Asian competitors in Turin."
China will also enter for the first time in ski jumping.
Sponsored by Gericom, an Austrian computer company, five Chinese
skiers were selected to train in Austria in April 2003. They have
made some improvements over the past two years. Tian Zhandong, 22,
became the first Chinese to accumulate World Cup ranking points
last season by being placed 48 in Austria.
Though the Chinese skiers are outsiders in the most dominant of
all winter Olympic events, they hope to use the Turin experience as
a springboard for the 2010 Vancouver Games.
"We need time to catch up with other countries," said Koch
Heinz, China's Austrian coach of the ski jumping team. "There is a
long way to go."
(China Daily February 7, 2006)