NANJING, China - Who can make the world sports stars after the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games (YOG), which is staged for athletes aged 15-18 from around the world? Who can be the future Olympic champions?
Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte just for fun at Youth Games
How could somebody who already won an Olympic gold be eligible for the Youth Olympics? Well, Ruta Meilutyte stunned in London when she was 15. It's just a "experience journey" for the reigning Olympic 100m breaststroke champion Meilutyte to attend the Nanjing YOG.
She is already a big star before she arrived in Nanjing. The Lithuanian girl is the 50m and 100m breakstroke world records holder. At the Youth Olympics, she's 2 seconds faster in 100m breakstroke than her closest rival. It's a similar case in the 50m breakstroke, she has almost a whole body lead over the second finisher. Meilutyte is quite likely to dominate her events in the Rio Olympics.
Hopeful Chinese tennis star after Li Na
Chinese tennis player Ye Shilin won the YOG women's tennis singles champion at the age of 16. She's the favorite candidate to take the place of Li Na, who is China's No. 1 tennis player with two Grand Slam titles from the French and Australia Opens.
Li, who is already 33 years old, along with a couple of other women players, who are named "golden flowers" in China, have been strangled in declining in their career.
Xu, who has six-year training in the United States, followed up to take the professional tennis void when the "golden flowers" come close to their retirement. Xu lost only one set on her way to reach the top podium and has her young group ranking lifted to fourth, the highest ever for a Chinese. Xu reached the quarterfinal at the Wimbledon Open young group.
6-gold medallist to spearhead China's swimming
Shen Duo, 17, collected six gold medals at the YOG, and what makes that impressive is that she won those competitions under the affection of flu. Among the six gold-grabbing events, Shen made a splash in her two individual events. She updated the world youth records of women's 100m and 200m freestyle in a time of 53.84 seconds and 1 minture 56.12 seconds respectively.
Ukraine's marksman stunning in shooting
Pavlo Korostylov of Ukraine surpassed Vietnamese Xuan Vinh Hoang's finals world record, set earlier this year, by 0.6 points to win the men's 10m air pistol at the YOG, which makes him a promising Olympic medallist.
Jan Ketzel, an official of the International Shooting Sport Federation, explained Korostylov's score would not be ratified as a world record, due to an International Olympic Committee directive which states that any records at the YOG are not recognized, but anyway the 18-year-old Ukrainian has already demonstrated his talent capable of the Olympics comeptition.
Chinese women's soccer team seeking blossom
The Chinese women's soccer team had long been a powerhouse, but not for the latest decade. China had reached the final at the 1999 Women's World Cup, which they lost on penalty shootout to the hosts, the United States, 4-5.
At the Youth Olympics, China's U-15 women's soccer team thrashed Venezuela 5-0 in the final and earned China a long-waited title on the sport. The 1999-World Cup team of China, the most powerful Chinese women soccer team ever, was nicknamed "Iron Roses", now China can expect the roses to blossom again.
Olympics podium calling for China's Yang, a shooting prodigy
18-year-old Yang Haoran is at the top of the world ranking of men's 10m air rifle. It's his own stage on the event when he comes to the YOG. Yang's consistency and accuracy are both persuasive in shooting and convincingly won it by an advantage of 5.
Yang has been competing internationally for only two years, but he has already claimed a world championship gold medal, three World Cup gold medals and a World Cup silver on the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) all-ages circuit.
In near-perfect form at the YOG, he delivered the much-anticipated gold medal with a score of 209.3, consistently hit high 10s, marking a perfect 10.9 on the fifth shot and finishing strongly with a 10.7 and 10.5 final series. Among his 20 shoots in final, you can just find single one below 10.
Table Tennis for China, a doulbe champion not far
Fan Zhendong, 17, is ranked third in men's table tennis ranking.
He had defeated Zhang Jike, a grand slam winner, and top players like Timo Boll and Han Shuai at China's table tennis super league.
Playing at the Youth Games, Fan successfully won the singles and mixed doubles as expected, but for him the Youth Olympics is just a confidence booster. Fan is aiming to repeat his feat at the Rio Olympics 2016 and becomes the first one ever to crown double champion on both Youth and major Olympics.
Weightlifter, still prolific in China
Meng Cheng of China set a world youth record in the men's 56kg weightlifting competition at the YOG. He lifted 155kg in the clean and jerk with his second lift to break the previous world mark by 1kg.
Combined with his 128kg lift in the snatch, his total weight of 283kg won him the gold medal by 40kg from his nearest rival. In Meng's usual training, he tries 160kg in clean and jerk, 135kg in snatch , which combines for 295kg, around 10kg away from the world record. At the age of 17, Meng has the potential to challenge that record some day.
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