Chinese Star Gymnasts Hit by "Post-Olympics" Symptom

Chinese gymnasts have been hit by a "post-Olympics' symptom and has almost no chance to win a gold in the World Cup Finals to be held in Glasgow on September 9-10, a top Chinese official said on Friday.

Qian Kui, manager of the Chinese team, said that the star gymnasts, who won three gold medals from men's team, parallel bars and women's beam, is likely to return home empty-handed.

"They have been out of practice since returning from the Sydney Olympic Games," Qian said. "It's absolutely impossible not to make serious errors during the competition."

Qian, former head coach of Chinese women's national team, said that in the last two months, the Olympic stars had been busy with attending celebration parties and other social activities and almost forgotten what a training ground was like.

"The women's beam gold medalist Liu Xuan is gaining half a kilometer every day. She cannot execute a simple move on the beam now," Qian said.

Liu was one of the best-know absentees in the biannual event. Russia's Alexei Nemov, the unanimously recognized star in Sydney by winning two gold medals, one silver and three bronzes, and his compatriot Svetlana Khorkina, the 1996 and 2000 Olympic women's uneven bars champion, also missed the competition.

"I have watched our rivals training from Romania, Russia and some other countries and found all of them are in a better form than us," Qian said.

Seven Chinese gymnasts, including four men and three women, will compete in eight events. The four men, including Huang Xu, Yang Wei, Xing Ao'wei and Xiao Junfeng, are all members from the winning team in Sydney.

"Xing just returned to Beijing last Monday from a party organized by his hometown," Qian said. "He has attended three such parties after the Olympics."

The World Cup Finals are the apparatus specialists' field of play and will have no team and all-around competitions. To qualify for the event, a gymnast must participate in a minimum of three competitions, which took place in different continents.

Chinese gymnasts won six gold medals from the last World Cup Finals held in Sabae, Japan, in 1998.






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