Saturday, the first day of the Beijing Games' competition, will witness Saber queen Tan Xue fighting all out to end host China's 24-year Olympic fencing gold drought.

Tan has been regarded as China's most hopeful to win an Olympic fencing gold medal in Beijing. Her teammates Bao Yingying and Huang Haiyang are also quite competitive.

However, it will never be easy for the dream to come true. Tough rivals are mainly from the United States, including Athens gold medalist Zagunis Mariel, world No. 1 Jacobson Sada and their team mate Ward Becca.

At the Athens Games, Tan beat Jacobson to advance to the final in which she lost to another American player Zagunis, winning one of the three fencing silver medals China got at the Games.

According to the competition schedule for Saturday, Tan Xue and Huang Haiyang will face Jacobson in the preliminaries, while Bao Yingying will meet with Zagunis and Ward.

China has not seen an Olympic fencing gold since the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

(Xinhua News Agency August 8, 2008)