| Saturday, November 10, 2001, updated at 15:21(GMT+8) |
China Eyes Olympic Gold in 2008, Says Hockey Chief |
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The Chinese women's hockey team aims at the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, said a hockey official while watching the field hockey matches at China's Ninth National Games in Guangzhou.
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The Chinese women's hockey team aims at the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, said a hockey official while watching the field hockey matches at China's Ninth National Games in Guangzhou.
Lu Zhihua, general secretary of the Chinese Hockey Association, said the situation is in favor of the team as "never before" and the team would "go all out" to win the gold in 2008.
The State General Administration of Sports, he said, has lavished greater support for the sport and put in more money since the team gave a surprise performance and finished fifth at last year's Sydney Olympic Games.
Guided by its Korean coach, the Chinese women's hockey team, as if a dark horse dashing out from nowhere, beat the world champion Holland and runner-up Germany at the Sydney Olympics.
Then they made a step further to place themselves fourth at this year's Champions Trophy in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Michele Arnold and Lynn Cowie-McAlister, two Australian umpires invited to officiate the field hockey events at the National Games, scheduled to open Sunday, said they are impressed by the rapid progress the Chinese women's hockey team has made. They believe that the Chinese girls could win a medal at the 2004 Olympics.
Only eight teams are competing for the women's filed hockey title at the current National Games and Lu said a new national team will be formed following the quadrennial event.
He said that the new team aims to win the title at the Asian Games next year so as to qualify automatically for the Athens Olympics.
Acknowledging the scarce hockey population in China, Lu said efforts would be made to promote six-player-a-side hockey games in elementary and secondary schools so as to make field hockey a more popular team sport here in China.
In addition, he said, the sports administration has decided to count one hockey gold medal as four in the medal tally at the coming Cities' Games in 2003.
The road to glory at the Beijing Olympics will not be a smooth sailing, said Lu. But "we have seven years to prespare and we'll try our best," he said.
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