Guo's Fantastic Saves not Enough to Save Chinese Women

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, February 13, 2002

Guo's Fantastic Saves not Enough to Save Chinese Women

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Chinese veteran goalie Guo Hong made 50 saves here on Tuesday, but it was still not enough to prevent Chinese women from losing their opening Group B match at the 19th Olympic Winter Games ice hockey.

"I feel disappointed that we lost the game, because this is the last time I will be playing in the Olympics," said the 28-year-old Guo following China's 4-0 defeat to Finland Tuesday afternoon.

"I wanted to do something for my team, so I just tried my best to block every shot on the Chinese goal," added Guo, who saved 50 shots out of 54 tries from Finland.

Guo, who helped China accomplish a fourth-place finish at Nagano in 1998, saved all the 17 shots and kept it a clean sheet for China in the first period.

Finland, the Nagano bronze medalists, finally broke the deadlock 10 minutes 37 seconds into the second period through forward Karoliina Rantamaki as she found the net with a close- range slap-shot on a perfect feed from Riikka Nieminen.

Nieminen, who is the top star in the Finnish squad, also assisted Katja Riipi and Emma Laaksonen to score in the 39:43 and 55:05 respectively before Saija Sirvio made it 4-0 for the good of Finland with 2:21 remaining in the game.

"The Finnish team is really faster than us and that's why we made so many mistakes in the game," said Chinese head coach Yao Naifeng.

"Our players are a little bit nervous at the Olympics."

Defending champions the United States trounced Germany 10-0 Tuesday to lead Group B ahead of Finland on goal difference while China and Germany stood third and fourth respectively.

Eight squads are competing in the Olympic women's ice hockey tournament with top two finishers from each of the two groups cruising into the top four. Reigning world champions Canada led Group A after Monday's competitions, followed by Sweden, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Tuesday also saw Austria beat Slovakia 3-2 and Germany overcome Latvia 2-1 in the men's ice hockey preliminary Group A. Germany topped Group A with two wins from two games and Latvia was second with one win and one draw.

In men's preliminary Group B, Belarus clinched the first place with one hundred percent record in two games while Ukraine coming in second after one win and one loss.

The eight teams in the preliminary competitions are vying for two berths to join the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Czech Republic and Finland in the final round.

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