| Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 19, 2001 |
Feature: China's Olympic Gym Candidates in Sight: Officials |
|
Aiming at least two Olympic golds at the 2004 Athens Games in the sport of gymnastics, Chinese sports officials said that the Olympic candidates for the world's top sports event have "emerged into our sight", and the planning for the 2008 Beijing Games has gone well.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Aiming at least two Olympic golds at the 2004 Athens Games in the sport of gymnastics, Chinese sports officials said that the Olympic candidates for the world's top sports event have "emerged into our sight", and the planning for the 2008 Beijing Games has gone well.
In an interview with Xinhua, Zhang Jian, a leading official with the State General Administration of Sports in charge gymnastics, said that a dozen of young talents had been spotted at the pre-event training and at the fortnight National Games starting in Guangzhou on November 11.
Declining to name these up-and-coming athletes, Zhang said they would gather together for a special training camp next February and participate abroad to obtain international experience, as "participation in world competitions has been listed by the Gymnastics Administrative Center as part of its training program."
Schedule conflict between the world championships last month in Ghent, Belgium and the current national games here was one of the main reasons for China to field a third-string squad in Ghent.
And such an arrangement also provided the novices a chance to compete in international contests. "It's like letting them test the waters against their rivals," Zhang said.
China would patch up "a combination squad with both veterans and novices to defend the men's team title and vie for the individual apparatus honors in Athens," he said. Male athletes Huang Xu and Feng Jing might be as picked up as candidates.
Huang was a member of China's Olympic champion men's team from the Sydney Games, while Feng, a formerly unknown to the world, was crowned as the men's individual all-around world champion in Ghent.
Zhang, an athlete-turned-coach and a Council member of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), praised such municipal and provincial teams of Jiangsu, Shanghai, Yunnan, Shandong and Guangdong as "even better than the national team has done in training the athletes."
Zhang noticed the long-standing support by local teams to the development of the sport in China. He said he preferred having young potentials trained in local teams first. Regular
instructions and opportunities for international competitions should be provided before they are recruited into the national team for further preparations for the Beijing Olympics, probably at the age of 12 for women and 15 for men.
As Beijing will host the 2008 Olympics, "The Gymnastics Administrative Center has been more concerned with Chinese athletes' performance in Beijing than in Athens," Zhang told
Xinhua.
To make the sport more popular, the FIG has adopted since the Sydney Olympics a six-three-three format for the team competition to replace the original six-five-four one. That means that only three of the six athletes in a team could be fielded onto the floor and the scores of the three will be aggregated for the team total.
On challenges brought to the Chinese by the new rules adopted by the FIG, Zhang noted the Chinese gymnasts, male athletes in particular, had already adapted themselves to the new Code of Points and competition format.
Gao Jian, deputy director of the Gymnastics Administrative Center agreed. He said that the new rules are generally thought to mainly focus on athletes' performance in individual apparatus events rather than their all-around capability. It would be more difficult and opportunistic than ever before to win while more chances would be available for those good at individual apparatus events.
To response to the rule changes, Gao said, our training strategy should be shifted from training all-around talents to individual kingpins. But basic skill training should remain as important as before, for youngsters, he added.
|
|
|
|