Chinese divers, dubbed "Dream Team" for its commanding performance in world championships and Olympic Games, will try to achieve good results in the coming world championships in Barcelona, Spain, a top sports official said Thursday in Ji'nan.
Zhou Jihong, head of the Chinese national diving team, told Xinhua that the divers had been preparing for the biannual championships in a training camp here for over a month.
"Although they are not in their best form because some divers have been plagued with injuries, but the team is in high moral," said Zhou, who herself became China's first Olympic diving champion in the 1984 Games in Los Angles.
Zhou said that the Barcelona world championships will be the most important competition for all divers leading to the Athens Olympic Games and the Chinese will have to take very tough challenges from Canada, the United States, Germany and Russia.
"Because of the outbreak of SARS, we have not competed a lot in the past six months. So some of our new highly difficult dives have not been tested. We have not yet to do them in Barcelona," Zhou added.
But Zhou is confident that the Chinese team, who won eight gold medals out of 10 in the last world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, will make a big splash in the event.
"The Chinese divers are sure to carry forward our good tradition to win honors on big occasions for our country. We willalso learn from our table tennis team, who displayed the true spirit of the Chinese people in the world championships, which greatly encouraged the country in the fight against SARS."
The all-conquering Chinese table tennis team won four out of five gold medals on offer in the recent world championships in Paris.
China will send a total of 14 divers for the Barcelona event,which is scheduled for July 13-27.
(People's Daily June 13, 2003)
