Chinese paddlers should be well prepared for possible difficulties in the team event of the Beijing Olympics table tennis tournament, a team leader said on Thursday.
Huang Biao, leader of China's national team, said that China's star-studded men and women teams should neither fear nor belittle their opponents.
"If we want to win gold medals, we must get ourselves prepared for each match no matter whether the opponent is weak or strong," he said. "In history, we capsized in small streams many times."
Huang made the remarks after both Chinese men and women paddlers entered groups A as top seeds in the round-robin team tournament of the forthcoming Olympics.
Chinese men will play Austria, Greece and Australia in the group stage, while its women must beat Austria, Croatia and Dominican Republic to reach the next round.
The winner of each of the four groups will directly make the semifinals.
"China has been preparing for the competitions in Beijing all the time, following a detailed plan of a coach team," Huang said. "The training targets are our rivals."
"South Korea and Germany are both strong teams, with excellent battle effectiveness and stubborn styles. They are China's main rivals," he added.
Huang admitted that the so-called home advantage and people's high expectations exerted great pressure on the national team, but the pressure would turn into a positive impetus if properly handled.
Table tennis, China's national sport, was introduced to the Olympic Games in 1988. Since then, the Chinese paddlers have collected 16 out of 20 gold medals on offer.
The only missing gold at the 2004 Athens Games was the men's singles title when the then rising star Wang Hao, who tops the world rankings in July this year, suffered an unexpected defeat to South Korea's Ryu Seung Min in the final.
"Wang Hao is in good form and is doing well in training and warm-up competitions," Huang said.
"Although Wang beat Ryu more than once in the last four years, Ryu is not the only rival in Beijing."
(Xinhua News Agency August 7, 2008)