Gong Luming was dismissed as head coach of the national women's basketball team and will be replaced by Australian coach Tom Maher, according to the Administrative Center of Basketball yesterday.

"In the past five years, Gong Luming has been a hard-working coach and he has contributed a lot to women's basketball," said Hu Jiashi, vice-director of the center. "But we found that we were left behind by the world's top teams at the Athens Olympics. Facing the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it is high time for us to bridge that gap, that's why we employed the Australian coach."

Since starting in 1999, Gong has led the team to the 2002 Asian Games title and the top six in the 2003 World Championships, but then he failed to bring the team to the quarter-finals of the Athens Olympics.

"Gong does not have enough understanding of the defeat in Athens," explained Hu.

Gong, who was just reappointed last December, was not present at the conference but expressed his surprise at such a sudden decision.

"I know they are looking for a foreign coach but I never thought things would change so fast," Gong told sina.com.cn. "I was determined to improve the team when I came back from Athens, but I have no choice now as the center has made up its mind."

Having spent five years with Gong, China's female basketballers also expressed their regrets over his departure.

"He is our model in training and life," said Chen Nan, the national team's center. "We can hardly accept his leaving unemotionally."

"We have a deep feeling with each other as we have experienced so much in the past years," said Chen's teammate Miao Lijie.

The center is believed to be following the country's men's team as Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Del Harris, only four months after he took charge, led the team to beat two-time world champions Serbia and Montenegro, honoring his commitment to march into the quarter-finals.

"It is very important for the team to employ a foreign coach, especially in this period," said Hu. "We are using the experience of the men's team and we urgently need to keep pace with fast-developing international basketball."

Gong's successor, Maher, who was recommended by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), entered the spotlight after ending China's Olympic dreams in a deciding match, leading New Zealand into the quarter-finals. The Kiwis finished eleventh at the Sydney Olympics.

Maher won Olympic medals when he led the Australian women's basketball team to a bronze in the 1992 Atlanta Olympics and then a silver in Sydney. The 52-year-old also took the helm at WNBA's Washington Mystics team in 2001, becoming the first foreign coach in the league.

Maher is expected to join the team on March 18 and his first task will be next year's World Championships.

"I hope he is the one to lead the national team at the Beijing Olympics, but we will first give him a one-year contract," said Hu. "The rest of the contract depends on the team's result in the World Championships."

(China Daily March 17, 2005)