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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 23, 2001

Ma's Army Bags One More Gold at National Games

With Dong Yanmei's title of the women's 5,000 meters at China's Ninth National Games, the Liaoning track team under the maverick coach Ma Junren swept away a total of eight golds in the games' athletics events which ended Friday.


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With Dong Yanmei's title of the women's 5,000 meters at China's Ninth National Games, the Liaoning track team under the maverick coach Ma Junren swept away a total of eight golds in the games' athletics events which ended Friday.

The 22-year-old Dong belongs to the second generation of the famed middle- and long-distance running squad known as "Ma's Army.

" Although she claimed two titles in the women's 5,000m and 10, 000m, her results are not as impressive as her predecessors, who dazzled the world in the 1993 Stuttgart world championships by shattering a string of records in the women's 1,500, 3,000 and 10, 000m.

Dong clocked a time of 14 minutes and 51.58 seconds, 23.49 seconds behind the world record of 14:28.09. Her champion mark of the women's 10,000 meters last Monday, 31:43.59, was more than two minutes short of the world record of 29:31.78, set by Ma's former protege Wang Junxia in 1997.

One of the third generation of Ma's Army, the 21-year-old Lin Na is also a double gold medalist at the current games, which is about to wrap up Sunday. Lin claimed the titles of the women's 800m and 1,500m, but again her results cannot be compared with the old timers of the squad. Her winning time of the 800m at 2:00.77 was 7.49 seconds slower than the world record of 1:53.28 set by Jarmila Kratochvilova of former Czechoslovakia in 1983.

And Lin finished her 1,500m in 4:07.06, about 16.54 seconds away from the world record of 3:50.46 set by Qu Yunxia, one of the first generation of Ma's Army, in 1993. Nevertheless, the younger generation of Ma's Army have shown their strength at the 9th National Games. Aside from Dong and Lin' s golds, the team also clinched the titles of women's marathon, men's 10,000m and marathon, and men's decathlon.

But they are yet to give a convincing performance in the world arena. To date, only Dong won the title of the women's 5,000m at the 21st Summer Universiade in Beijing last August, and finished only fourth at the Edmonton World Championships this year. In his heyday, Ma Junren claimed that he could have anyone of his proteges to shatter whatever record at his will. Today he is no longer that boastful. "Don't expect too much from Ma's Army," he told reporters covering the quadrennial sports meet. "I don't think the Chinese women long distance runners are able to shock the world again." Yet he does have expectations on his new male proteges, like Qi Haifeng, the champion of men's decathlon at the national games.

At 18 years of age, Qi is regarded as an upcoming star in Ma's Army, and Ma Junren predicted that the lad will give more surprise performances at the Pusan Asian Games next year and the Athens Olympics in 2004. Ma, along with many other Chinese, is expecting a lot from the third generation of his army.




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Ma's Army Snatches Two Athletic Golds  



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