Team China
Three keys to greater glory
(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-01 13:56
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The curtain comes down on the Vancouver Winter Olympics today and China's ladies and men of the snow and ice can take a bow for doing their nation proud.
The team in red claimed a national record 11 Winter Games medals, including five of the most prized hue.
If you want to rank countries by medals won, that tally puts China equal eighth with France overall. If your benchmark is golds won, then the country's handful sets it in a tie with Sweden in seventh place.
For a nation with no great degree of winter sports pedigree, this marks a substantial achievement and advancement and places China among the best, if not the elite, in games people play when the temperature drops.
Now, the trick for the Chinese sports authorities and athletes is to maintain and build on this Vancouver momentum and realize even greater performances at Sochi, Russia, four years from now.
That will be easier said than done and the country faces three major obstacles it must overcome if it wishes to join or even near the world's winter heavyweights, the US, Germany, Canada and Norway.
Firstly, the retirements of the gold and silver medallists in figure skating pairs, the 2006 men's aerials champion Han Xiaopeng, women's aerials silver medalist Li Nana, veteran biathlete Liu Xianying, the three most experienced members of the women's ice hockey team and a host of others means some sports are going to have to go into serious rebuilding mode.
Secondly, the male athletes have to start catching up with their female counterparts. China's women had a hand in all five of the nation's golds. Zhao Hongbo was the only male to stand on the highest podium after claiming long-sought-after Olympic figure skating glory with his wife, Shen Xue.
Thirdly, China needs to expand its Winter Games focus. Outside of figure skating, short-track speed skating, freestyle skiing, snowboarding and, if you wish, curling, the country is either weak or a non-factor in most other events.
Of course, that won't happen overnight, or even four years hence, but if China wants to be a legitimate power at both the Summer and Winter Games, the building must start from now. After Vancouver, the foundation has been laid.
