Let preparations for Vancouver Winter Games begin

Curling and snowboard half-pipe are now considered to be potential gold medal events at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, officials said on Tuesday at a conference for the Winter Olympics preparations.

"Curling and snowboard half-pipe have improved recently and reached a high level at international competitions," said Zhao Yinggang, director of China's Winter Sports Administrative Center.

"It means there are more opportunities for China to achieve good results in team and snow events."

The conference marked the beginning of preparations for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.

Presently, China's winter sports athletes are not as strong as those for the summer events, with good results in just short track speed skating, figure skating pairs and freestyle skiing aerials.

But during the 2007/08 season, China's women's curling team and some snowboarders gained some good results.

Three young women snowboarders, Liu Jiayu, Chen Xu and Sun Zhifeng, performed well during the Snowboard World Cup series, winning three golds and several runner-up medals.

"More young athletes are appearing at advanced events, such as short track speed skating, speed skating and freestyle skiing aerials," Zhao said. "More practice at big competitions will help them perform more steadily."

However, he cautioned against excessive optimism.

"For those events that we have an advantage, our opponents have become stronger, such as in figure skating and freestyle aerials," Zhao said.

"Those winter sports powerhouses are paying more attention to preparation as well, which makes it more difficult."

At the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games, China claimed two gold medals, four silvers and five bronzes, ranking 14th.

A lack of reserve team potential is holding back further development. According to Zhao, there are just over 2,000 registered winter sports athletes in the country and among them only 172 athletes can compete at high-level events.

"We have few new medal winning events and opponents in our advanced events are becoming stronger, which makes it more difficult for us at the Games," Zhao said.

(China Daily 05/08/2008 page23)