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Hopes high on snow for China
By Lei Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-07 06:33
Claiming their first Winter Olympic gold medal from short track speed skating
at Salt Lake City four years ago, the Chinese, who enjoyed their strongest
showing ever in the Summer Olympics in Athens in 2004 with 32 gold medals, are
expecting a breakthrough on snow at the upcoming Turin Winter Olympic Games.
 The record 76-athlete-team for Turin, for the first time ever has an
overwhelming number of snow event competitors compared to ice event competitors.
China's first Olympic medal on snow was won by Xu Nannan at 1998 Nagano
Winter Olympics, and the women's freestyle aerials team have big hopes to repeat
that this year.
Made up of a group of world cup series stage champions, the team is confident
of victory at present.
"Our team is strong as a whole and no matter who misses the Games, we are
confident of good results at Turin," said Li Nina, China's first freestyle
skiing aerials world champion.
Since Xu has recently returned to the event following a severe injury and Guo
Xinxin has managed movements with almost the highest difficulty level in the
world, China will be able to send its strongest ever aerials team to Turin this
time.
The fourth member of the team is yet to be announced and may be one of three
young girls Zhang Xin, Wang Jiao and Cheng Shuang, all of whom have achieved the
top three positions during the world cup series.
The team also promised that they would not repeat the errors like four years
ago. At 2002 Salt Lake City's Winter Olympic Games, Xu, the 1998 silver
medallist, missed out on the podium due to faults that occurred because of the
huge amount of pressure on her for the event.
"At the last Games, all the pressure was on Xu alone. But this time, all of
us will share the pressure together," said Li. "We will compete for gold in a
more relaxed manner."
Besides the freestyle aerials event, China also has eyes
on better results for the biathlon.
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