The head coach of the Chinese ski jump women's team Heinz Kuttin told Xinhua in Klingenthal on Saturday that the jumpers have great potential and will fight for the podium of Beijing Winter Olympics.

The former Austrian ski jumper and winter Olympics medals winner became the coach of China's women team last year. He saw the team with good jumpers and young athletes with great potential.

Chang Xinyue, China's first Olympic ski jumper, is regarded as one of his favorites. She won the 20th ranking in Pyeongchang Olympics and is now recovering from injuries.

"She may come back at the end of this season or the next season. She should be ready to start in April next year to train with the team," said Kuttin, "Li Xueyao and Zhou Fangyu are high potential girls. The team can work together. I think we can fight for the medal with one of these ladies."

"Every athlete has the Olympic dream. I know how hard it is to reach good results at Olympics. You have to set up big goal and work hard every day. But you also have to calm down in minds and need some rest."

As he believed, Chinese girls are working so hard on physical training. "Ski jump is not a sport that needs the highest level of physical training. You need good techniques. It's going really fast. If you make a tiny mistake, you may fall to serious injury."

Li Xueyao ranked at the bottom position of the table among the 39 contenders at Klingenthal World Cup on Saturday. Both the girl and the coach believed Li was affected by the wind turbulence.

"She was not lucky today. When she was competing, the weather condition is not good. You always need to hold the chance no matter what kind of wind you are in," said Kuttin after the competition.

Li did not have much training on the big hill and usually trained on normal hill from 90m to 100m. She won the 17th place on HS97 at Roznov World Cup last season, and Lillehammer World Cup this season was her first time to compete on HS140 and she won the 25th ranking.

"It's not easy for Li. She came back for skiing in October and we were preparing for 100m hill. We should train more on big hills. She can reach top 30 or even top 20 when she performs well, but she is a bit unstable and had two or three falls last season," said Kuttin.

"The ski jump world tournaments schedule were set up very intensively and the team is not 100 percent ready for the new season," said the coach, "It'll take lots of energy to compete continuously and we have to get used to it. We have a better plan next year and will be stable and stronger."

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