Yearender: Chinese Sports Find Confidence and Challenges at National Games

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 19, 2001

Yearender: Chinese Sports Find Confidence and Challenges at National Games

The Ninth National Games demonstrated the strength of Chinese sports while shedding light on the challenges lying ahead.

The Ninth National Games demonstrated the strength of Chinese sports while shedding light on the challenges lying ahead.

The quadrennial event, held from November 11-25 in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, came as Chinese sports was basking in the glory of being awarded the 2008 Olympic Games and inspired by the unprecedented haul of 28 golds and third-place finish overall at last year's Sydney Olympics.

More than 8,000 athletes from 45 contingents competed at the national games, second to the Olympic Games in status and importance to Chinese athletes.

It turned out to be a showcase of the strength of Chinese sports, as seven world records in women's weightlifting, six Asian records in swimming, cycling and track and field events, along with 37 national records were bettered.

Chinese swimming, which had been struggling in recent years, seemed to be rebounding, evidenced by six world best times and some results ranked among this year's top three.

The 13-day games also witnessed Chinese superiority in its traditional sports of table tennis, badminton, gymnastics and diving, from which China garnered 16 gold medals in the Sydney Olympics.

China has such a big pool of talents in such traditional events that young blood or relatively unknown players emerged to steal the limelight and honors of big names.

"I know it is impossible for me to win the national title, even though I won the world title early this month," said Feng Jing, the 16-year-old men's all-around titlist at November's world gymnastics championships at Ghent, Belgium. He only finished fourth in the national event.

Wang Liqin, who won the men's singles title in the 46th world table tennis championships in Osaka last April, ended up with a bronze medal in the national games.

A world-class field including some 20 world and Olympic champions made diving one of the most exciting events so that it is said to be "even more competitive than the Olympics".

Such inspiring performances have been pulled off as the organizers toughened its hand in doping test, conducting a lot more doping tests during the competition and putting in place more sophisticated means and state-of-art facilities to detect drug offense.

Blood tests for detecting performance-enhancing EPO, were adopted for the first time in the national games. Any athlete was immediately disqualified from the games, once his or her urine sample A was tested positive.

"this is tougher than usual, we don't allow any loopholes to possible doping cheaters,"said Zhang Changjiu, anti-doping chief of the organizing committee of the national games.

Buoyed by the athletes' performances in the national games, Chinese sports officials have set their sights on major international events to come. The Chinese Modern Pentathlon Association has worked out an ambitious eight-year development program, with such targets as three golds at next year's Asian Games in Pusan, a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and four golds at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha.

The Chinese Wrestling Association officials said they had worked out a plan for winning Olympic honor at the Athens Games, especially in the freestyle events. A women's national training camp will be set up this winter, face a possible listing of women' s wrestling as an Olympic event.

"Chinese rowers are expected to break their Olympic gold drought in the 2004 Games and we aim to gain more ground in 2008," said one senior official in charge of China's aquatic sports.

Jin Guoxiang, a Shanghai sports official, said Shanghai had started planning for the 2002 Asian Games and the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games. He pledged a greater contribution at the 2004 Olympic Games than at Sydney -- three gold medals.

Athletes from Shanghai have done well in Chinese Olympic outings, with star woman swimmers Zhuang Yong and Yang Wenyi each winning a gold medal at the 1992 Games in Barcelona and Le Jingyi taking a gold in Atlanta. Shanghai's women shooter Tao Luna won China's first gold medal of the 2000 Games and Wang Liqin combined with Yan Sen to take the men's doubles table tennis event in Sydney.

"We'd try to contribute more at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing," Jin added.

Worries, however, came after joy during the national games, even in China's favorite events such as diving.

Dubbed as "dream teams" both at Olympic Games and world championships, Chinese diving faced a shortage of young talents in springboard events, especially for men's and women's synchronized.

Fu Mingxia and Xiong Ni, who won seven golds from the previous three Olympic Games, have retired.

Lots of events, such as swimming, have been dogged by the problem that male athletes are often in the shadow of their female counterparts of world-class caliber.

Zhang Qiuping, vice president of Chinese Swimming Association, said that China cannot be called a swimming power until after our male swimmers enter the finals and win medals in international events.

As a test event for the future Olympics, the games raised an embarrassing question to the host of 2008 Olympic Games that how many golds China will achieve from such medal-rich sport as athletics.

Asian records were bettered in only three out of the 47 athletics events, which include women's 20 kilometer walk, women's hammer and women's triple jump. None of the results could threaten the world marks.

China snatched just one gold apiece from the last three Olympics Games.

"For better results at the 2004 and 2008 Olympiad, efforts should be made right from now on," said Chinese Olympic Committee president Yuan Weimin. "We should keep to the "Olympic Glory' Program."

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