BEIJING - The much stronger Americans, twice Paralympic champions at the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Games, handed out a lesson in both skills and physical strength to the younger Chinese team, winning the match with a remarkable 65-30.
Led by their main scorer Chance Sumner, the Americans launched brilliant attacks to the Chinese court and soon established winning advantage by concluding the first period 16-8.
Though unrelenting, the slim Chinese players could hardly organize effective attacks under the Americans' side-by-side defense. In the contrary, they committed a series of passing errors in the head-on-head clash with their rivals.
The U.S. team sent in substitutes since the second period, but still dominated the game. With the outstanding performance of Will Groulx, who contributed 16 points with 15 minutes on the court, the Americans took the match 65-30.
However, China's 23-year-old Chen Jun impressed both the spectators and his opponents with 17 assistant blocks and passing.
"I'm absolutely in love with the violent bang clashes and high speed riding of this game, which maybe is too new for my fellow countryman to accept, but this is the allure of this game, this is what wheelchair rugby is about," said Chen. "I think what our team need is time. Given more time for training, we will exceed the strong teams in the future."
Chinese head coach Wen Yan showed great satisfaction with her young squad.
"The Chinese team have been together for only one year, and I think today the players' performance was good, showing the effect of their hard training," said Wen.
"Though we have only participated in few matches and we have much room for the improvement of both tactics and skills, the players have shown a great fighting spirit and they never gave up on the court -- that is our main goal to achieve at the Paralympics," she said.
The American captain Bryan Kirkland was also surprised by the progress the Chinese have made.
"Since the last time that we saw them in Canada this year, they have improved 110 percent. They were new, green at that time, but today, we can see their pick and roll skills have improved dramatically," said Kirkland. "I won't be surprised (if) they make even more progress in the near future."
In the three other matches of the day, Britain overpassed defending champions New Zealand 39-38 in a pulsating game of Pool A. Troye Collins broke through the solid defense of New Zealand and scored the decisive point just four seconds before the match ended.
In Pool B, Athens silver medalist Canada harvested a sweaty 48-40 win over an unyielding Japan, while Australia upset Germany 47-36.