|
Worlds are just warm-up for 2008, says China
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-11-15 11:01
BEIJING, Nov 15 (Reuters) - No junk food, no computer games, no trips to the
mall and seven-hour training sessions six or seven days a week -- that is life
for Fan Ye and the other young members of China's national gymnastics team.
|
Members of
the Chinese national gymnastics team Zhang Lin (L) and Fan Ye (R) practice
at Beijing's National Gymnastics Centre November 9, 2005. China's gymnasts
are training hard almost every day ahead of this month's world
championships in Melbourne. [Reuters]
| Their
coaches are not looking for the all-work-no-play regimen to pay off at next
week's world championships; they have already set their sights on a bigger prize
still years away.
"We're putting everything we have towards the 2008 Olympics," Zhang Peiwen,
head of the Chinese delegation to the Melbourne championships, told Reuters at
the team's high-tech training centre in Beijing.
"We want our athletes to try some new moves as preparation for the Beijing
Games," Zhang said. "We want to develop some new talent."
China will also be looking to vault back into the ranks of the world's
gymnastics powers after their flop at the Athens Olympics, where they took only
one gold and finished deep down the table in the men's and women's team events.
"Bear hardship, strive for the team, start from less than scratch, do the
utmost to catch up," reads a huge slogan hanging on a wall of the lofty training
facility.
RECORD RECOVERY
For Li Xiaopeng, China's gymnastics hero, breaking a national team record at
Melbourne would be a perfect way to move on from his no-medal result at Athens.
|
