Grabbing all the top places in the women's side of this season's Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS) Freestyle Aerials World Cup series, the Chinese freestyle aerials team is setting their sights on the medals in next February's Turin Winter Olympic Games.
"I'm hoping for at least two to three medals for the team at the Olympics," said Dustin Wilson, the team's Canadian coach.
"The women's team has a better chance and the focus for them is to win a gold."
Xu Nannan's silver medal in the women's aerials in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games, marked a breakthrough for China in snow events at the Olympic Games and they have since gone from strength to strength in this field.
But with Xu's bad form four years later, a younger skier Li Nina finished in fifth place at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, securing China's strong position in the event.
Ever since late last year, Li has produced consistently well in the World Cup series, successfully clinching six titles.
In last season's World Championships in Ruka, Finland, the 21-year-old Li also won China its first aerials world championship title. So with the teams' strengths continuing, the opportunity for a gold in Turin definitely exists.
"They are very strong as a group and they train very hard," commented Wilson, who has coached the team for a whole year. "Their disadvantage is some of them do not have so much experience but our leaders have. Li's success last season played an important role in build the team's confidence, though other competitors are getting strong in this field throughout world."
Olympic backbone formed
During the Olympic qualifiers, China won four women's and four men's slots and three of the slots for each team have been decided yet.
Led by veteran Xu and Li, a 22-year-old Guo Xinxin won the third ticket with complicated jumps.
"Guo is the only girl in the team capable of doing triple jumps," said Wilson. "There are only four or five girls in the world that can do the triples so Guo right now is really strong."
Suffering from a knee injury for the whole of last year's season, the 27-year-old Xu made a strong come back this year by winning one stop of the World Cup series with a further fifth and fourth finish among the past four stops.
"Xu has come back from her knee injury. It is fantastic for her confidence that is really high now," Wilson said.
Xu expressed her confidence as well after winning in Changchun, China's northeast Jilin province, last weekend.
"My aim is surely to win a gold in Turin Olympic Games. Not only me, but the whole of the Chinese team has the same goal now. Our team is strong in stability and has a profound overall strength," said Xu.
"I will do my best in Turin and I won't think too much about of the results. I will improve my movements in the air and further stabilize my landings in the future."
Besides Xu, Li is another important team member for China's success next year.
However, she unfortunately sustained a waist injury during a training session early this month, and thus missed the two stops of the World Cup in Changchun.
An X-ray showed that cold weather had led to the injury but it would not affect her bid for a gold medal in Turin. She has recovered quickly and is getting ready for the competition's next stop in Canada next January.
Before the injury, Li won both the two stops that she attended in Australia and is ranked in second place right after Xu in the overall standings.
"With Xu's rich experience, Li's stability of performing and Guo's complex jumps, the whole team is confident about good results in the Olympics," said Ji Dong, another coach of the team.
The fourth slot yet to be announced for the final Olympic entry list is still unknown, since the coaches reckon that many other young girls showed good form in the competitions.
With the absence of Li in the last two stops in Changchun, Wang Jiao, 19, claimed a gold while Zhao Shanshan, 18, and Zhang Xin, 20, both took the second place.
The coach spoke highly of these youths as well.
"They are younger members of the team. What I found great is that they've been training with the other girls very hard," said Wilson.
"We give a higher level of training for Xu, Guo and Li. That plays an important role in the training sessions. It is a strong team and everybody works hard together."
"All three girls have produced great results so there will be long discussions before the final name for the Olympic team will be announced," Wilson added.
In the opening stop of the season, Alisa Camplin of Australia, the 2002 Olympic gold medallist, came back from injury after 11 months of rest and finished fourth.
Although the main rival returned, the team showed little threat.
"Our team is stronger as a whole compared with the Australia's," said Xu.
Men are getting close
Compared with their female counterparts, the Chinese men's team is currently not that strong compared to the rest of the world, though they are getting closer to the world's best, according to coaches.
"We are working on building up the men's confidence and they're getting there," Wilson said. "They trained very hard in summer and have improved a lot. We're working very hard with the men's programme so we would like to see a medal in Italy from them."
The current men's Olympic team list includes Qiu Sen, Han Xiaopeng and the 25-year-old veteran Ou Xiaotao. Qiu and Han are ranked seventh and eighth respectively on the current World Cup circuit.
The whole team is continuing to train in Changchun at present and will head to Canada for the World Cup stops before the Turin Games.
"We will work hard on our training and keep focused," Wilson said. "We will also try to keep everybody healthy and safe."
(China Daily December 21, 2005)
