China satisfied with medal haul
Print Edition
Chinese Olympic chiefs said yesterday they are satisfied with their team’s haul of medals at the Sochi Games but admitted China still lags behind the top nations in winter sports.
China has so far won three golds and nine medals in total in Russia, down from 11 at the 2006 Turin Games and the same number in Vancouver four years later, where it won five golds.
The bulk of the success in Sochi came in short track speedskating but China also won a speedskating gold and two medals in aerials freestyle skiing.
The team’s medal hopes were badly hit before the Games even started, when short track speedskater Wang Meng, who won three golds in 2010, pulled out with a broken ankle.
Despite the reduced medal haul, deputy chef de mission Xiao Tian said “we finished our goal”, highlighting not just the medals won but progress in other sports such as men’s curling, where the team finished fourth.
But he admitted China, bidding to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, was still in the “second tier” of winter sports.
Clear-headed view
“We need to keep a clear-headed view when we look at the distance between China and others. We only have a short history of winter sports and the overall foundations are very weak.”
Xiao said China lagged behind European and North America nations in a number of disciplines and did not have the tradition or expertise in sports such as luge and bobsleigh.
Chinese athletes struggled to make any impact in the Alpine skiing events and Xiao said this was partly due to a lack of good skiing conditions in China.
But he said there was scope for China to make speedy progress in some of the newer winter sports such as snowboarding.
“I think the experience in Sochi has been very rewarding. It’s given us a lot of confidence. Winter sports in China started in the 1980s and after 30 years of hard work we have developed a team that should not be ignored on the world stage.
“We need to popularize winter sports so more people are playing and in the national team we must have good and sound training,” he added.
Under China’s joint Beijing-Zhangjiakou bid for 2022, ice sports would be held in the Chinese capital while snow events would take place in Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, about 200 kilometers away.
China has never hosted a Winter Games but the 2008 Summer Olympics marked a key milestone in the country’s emergence onto the world stage.
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