Veteran Liu ruled out returning to curling team

CHANGCHUN, Northeast China - Former national recruiter Liu Yin is not coming back for the upcoming world curling championships, according to a senior Chinese team official on Sunday.

Zhang Wei, head coach of the Chinese women's curling national team, said during the ongoing 12th national winter games that Liu is more concerned to family issues now and might not return for the March 17-25 worlds.

Liu, having skipped the Yichun 2011 international invitations and the Pan-Pacific championships in Nanjing last year, was absent here from her hometown's Harbin team for the national winter games.

The 30-year-old played third base as a member of the Chinese women's team which finished the world championship as the runners-up in 2008 and the title winners in 2009 before taking the bronze medal at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

Coming home with a bronze from the 2011 world championship, Liu, having partnered Wang Bingyu, Yue Qingshuang and Zhou Yan as a fixed national squad, got married in mid of 2011 to her long-time boyfriend, an ice hockey coach, before she went abroad for further educations.

To fill in Liu's shoe, a few nationals had played third base for the Chinese women's curling team at different occasions, but none of Sun Yue, Zheng Chunmei, Liu Jinli or Yu Xinna could have make sure of her position like Liu did.

"We have to find a good enough third base to play the upcoming world championship in the place of Liu Yin," said national head coach Zhang.