China's women aerialists ready to charge for Olympic gold

Updated: 2006-02-21 09:01

They were all world champions, but they never knew the taste of the Olympic gold. After the Salt Lake City setback, China's women aerialists were ready to get gold in Turin.

"The athletes are ready. They will perform to their best," team manager Yan Xiaojuan said firmly on Monday.

The women's first jumps, originally scheduled on Sunday, were postponed till Tuesday due to heavy snow. The final competition will start on Wednesday.

The Chinese aerialists were top on the list of medal hopes. Top favorite Li Nina is the World Cup leader of the season after three event wins, including the last event before the Turin Games at Spindleruv Mlyn, the Czech Republic.

China's Li Nina trains during the women's aerials freestyle competition at the Winter Olympic Games. [Reuters]

Her teammate Xu Nannan won the silver in Salt Lake City. The other two, Guo Xinxin and Zhang Jiao won this season's World Cup respectively in the United States and China.

China's Xu Nannan trains during the women's aerials freestyle competition at the Winter Olympic Games. [Reuters]

The Chinese athletes seemed at ease on Sunday before the postponement was announced. They even played snowball while waiting for the event to start.

Li, who had a back injury before the Olympics, said she has recovered to her best form and was concentrating on the Games.

Drawing lessons from her Salt Lake City journey where she finished fifth due to nervousness, the 23-year-old said she was now focusing on her training and was not thinking about anything else.

Despite not having much training before competition, Li said the Chinese aerialists were good at getting used to different weather conditions.

"For example last year, when we were competing in Fernie in Canada, for three days we couldn't train because it was raining and (we) went directly into the real competition without training. So we are used to that."

In contrast with Li's low profile, teammate Guo seemed to be more outspoken. "I am very confident. I am ready for the gold, and that's why I am here," she said in training.

To have a strong shot for gold, the Chinese aerialists have been working on the difficulty level of their jumps.

"We have been trying to make breakthroughs in the degree of difficulty in the summer training," Gao Xuedong, a senior official with the Chinese delegation said.

He said the combined degree of difficulty of Li's two jumps has been improved from 7.10 to 7.30. "Even though the degree of difficulty of her jumps are not very high, she is a very consistent and high-quality jumper."

On Guo Xinxin, the focus was switched from difficulty to consistency. "Her degree of difficulty has been lifted from 7.30 to 7.85, which is pretty high. But we also want to make sure her performance is stable," Gao said.

Gao played down the gold expectations on the Chinese aerialists, saying that the event has a high degree of uncertainty.

"The result was subject to many factors. It's only fair to say that we have the capacity of charging for the gold," he said.

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