China Suffer Early Exits at World Indoors Championships

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, March 15, 2003

China Suffer Early Exits at World Indoors Championships

Chinese athletes found themselves playing a minor role at the international arena as they suffered early exits on the opening day of the World Indoor Athletics Championships on Friday.

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Chinese athletes found themselves playing a minor role at the international arena as theysuffered early exits on the opening day of the World Indoor Athletics Championships on Friday.

China fell at the first hurdle in all their four events, which delivered a blow to their preparations for August's 9th World Championships in Paris.

Huang Qiuyan, Asian record holder in the women's triple jump, ranked bottom on 13.23 meters after the qualification round, whichis far behind her personal best of 14.40m.

Chinese team leader Feng Shuyong said that he didnot expect such a poor performance from Huang, who have just won a gold at the recent indoors event at Vienna.

"She had a big problem in the run-up to the sand pit, her running rhythm was fairly unstable," Feng said.

"The bottom cause lie with her training," he added.

Feng had the same point of view after watching the performancesof two Chinese athletes in the men's long jump where they were at the bottom of the rankings after the qualification round.

"It seems that they have not been training well enough," he said.

Li Dalong's 7.57 meters was a shadow of his personal best at 8.22 set at a national trial in 2001 while Lao Jianfeng, Asian record holder at 8.40 in 1997, could only jump to 7.46m.

Li, however, believed that he would have at least made the final if his training had not been hampered by injury.

"Actually the level here is not high, with the top qualifier only jumping to 8.12 meters," he said.

But both of them admitted that China has a long way to go before catching up with the world elite in this discipline.

"We've never achieved decent performances on international arena,"said Lao.

"The gap between us and the rest of the world is just like thatbetween Chinese boxer and the former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

It seemed to be the same case with the sprint races which saw two of China's Asian champions eliminated at the first rounds.

Qin Wangping clocked a time of 7.41 seconds in the women's 60m,outside of her personal best of 7.32 while Shen Yunbao's time of 6.90 seconds was not enough to send him through.

"I have not aimed for the final, what I seek is better time,"said Qin, who had wished to run within 7.30 seconds.

But it would not be easy for her to break the barrier as she was aware of her technical weakness.

"I have failed to swing arms properly," she said. "But I need to kick my bad habit if I want to get up a gear."

China have wished to use the indoor event as a warm-up for thissummer's outdoor championship, but they now find a lot of hard work to do before bounding for France.

"We need to improve our training, otherwise we would still underachieve,"said team leader Feng.

But he could somewhat take comfort from the fact that most of the Chinese athletes made debut at the highest-level indoor event.

"They could get mentally tough through competing against the world-class athletes,"Feng said.

Though having a colorless performance on the first day, China may receive a boost from their biggest medal hope on Saturday in the men's 60m hurdle.

"His form is consistent, he is out biggest hope for medals," Feng said of the Asian record holder both indoors and outdoors.

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