| Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 16, 2001 |
Feature: Women's Hockey to Fight Loneliness, Gain Popularity |
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Unlike men's soccer, table-tennis, swimming and diving, which often attract an audience to the full capacity of the venue, women's hockey is one of the most lonely events at the ongoing National Games that opened November 11. Players competing in the field always outnumbered the spectators watching them.
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Few sports draw so little attendance as women's field hockey does in China today.
Unlike men's soccer, table-tennis, swimming and diving, which often attract an audience to the full capacity of the venue, women's hockey is one of the most lonely events at the ongoing National Games that opened November 11. Players competing in the field always outnumbered the spectators watching them.
What is more embarrassing, the sport population is so scarce that coaches find themselves to have little room to pick desirable players.
Kim Chang Back, who has been invited from South Korea to work as head coach of China's national women's hockey team since January 2000, told Xinhua that in this country with the world's biggest population of approaching 1.3 billion, there are barely 200 players nationwide for him to select for the national team.
"Back in my country," said the 46-year-old veteran who is here in Guangzhou on the arbitration board for the games' hockey events, "we have over 70 women teams and more than 1,400 players. And there are even more in the Netherlands and Australia."
Competing for women's field hockey title at the current games were only eight teams, and the gold went to the defending champion Jilin of Northeast China in Thursday's finals.
Despite their expertise and honor in the sport, said Wang Qingsen, head coach of the champion, the team had to train in other parts of the country most of the time since there is no ideal pitch in the team's homebase.
"This year alone we spent more than nine months away from home to prepare for the National Games," Wang said.
While archaeological findings reveal that a similar sport was already in exist in China in the 7th century during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), and it has been played among some ethnic minorities in the northeast, the modern field hockey was not introduced to China until the mid-1990s. China's first field hockey team was formed as late as in 1995.
"Few Chinese have an idea about the sport," said Liu Shouzhong, head coach of the Guangdong team, the third placer at the Games. "As the sport is comparatively costly, many provinces could not afford the equipment and facilities for it."
Zhang Naiwu, Liu's colleague, is one of the first hockey players in China. In his time, he recalled, most teams in financial straights had to use tree branches as makeshift hockey
sticks to hit the ball. "Even today many players still have to play on cement ground," he said.
It was out of such loneliness that China's national women's hockey team emerged as a dark horse in their Olympic debut at the 2000 Sydney Games, beating the world champion Dutch team and runner-up Germany to dash to a record fifth place. At this year's Champions Trophy in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, they made a step further to rank fourth.
The surprising achievements have boosted the Chinese ambition, as Lu Zhihua, general secretary of the Chinese Hockey Association, revealed that China is now aiming the gold medal of women's field hockey at the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
"The State General Administration of Sports is lavishing greater support to the sport," said Lu, "and input is growing. Women's hockey is enjoying the best ever conditions now."
To gain popularity for the field hockey in China, Lu said "six-player-a-side hockey games will be encouraged in elementary and secondary schools." Then, in the coming 2003 National Intercity Games, "one hockey gold medal would be counted for four on the medal tally."
Some provincial sports authorities are taking measures to promote the sport. Liu said the provincial government of Guangdong built in 1996 for his team two pieces of standard artificial hockey field, and the province is the first in South China to have a field hockey team. "Now our team is OK thanks to such support from the local authorities."
But Liu expected more attention to the sport. "We need to have more teams before we could become more competitive," he said. As a first step, he said the number of domestic women's hockey teams should grow from the current eight to 10 or 12.
Long Fengyu, captain of China's national team, wished to have more opportunities to confront the world's top teams more often. Short of the funding, she said, this was but a luxury wish in the past. "Our 8-game-tour to Australia in 1999, when we qualified for the 2000 Olympics, helped us a lot for our campaign at the Sydney Olympics," she said.
The road to their goal won't be an easy one, admitted Lu. But head coach Kim does not think it is unrealistic. Although European players are taller and stronger physically than Asian players, he said that is not decisive.
"Asian players have their advantages over Europeans," said Kim. Making gestures of using chop-sticks, he said, "what is utmost important is the way you hold your hockey stick. European players grow up using knife and fork, and they could never match Asians who use sticks skillfully."
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