In an interview with Xinhua, Wang Jian, manager of the Chinese team, confessed that his fencers, which includes Olympic silver medalists Wang Haibin and Dong Zhaozhi, may have a chance to win the men's foil team title at the games, which runs from August 22 to September 1.

Wang added that, the two fencers, who started their campus life after the Sydney Olympic Games, are still in their top forms and have strength to assail for indivial honours.

In the men's foil individual, such foreign fencers as world second-ranked Salvatore Sanzo of Italy, sixth Lars Schache of Germany and 12th Mark Marsi of Hungary, are also in contention for the title.

China's another medal hope lies on women's team and individual foil. Meng Jie, who finished eighth in the World Cup last year, and a promising fencer Zhang Lei, whose world ranking rocketed to the 41st in recent months, would challenge prominent rivals from European countries, such as Italy, Hungary and Russia which are traditional fencing powers in the world.

However, they might face formidable attacks from the world's top foil fencer Valentina Vezzali from Italy, tenth-ranked Aida Mohamed from Hungary and well-known Russian fencer Ekaterina Ioucheva.

If the Chinese girls step into the individual semi-finals or even final, it would be an unexpected victory, Wang said.

Olympic bronze medalist Yang Shaoqi still remains a hot favourite in women's epee. She would lead the Chinese team, consisting of Chong Weiping, Li Na and Shen Weiwei and herself, to dethrone those European fencing powers in the competition.

Because of high rate of chanciness during competition of epee, Wang said it was very difficult to make a successful forecast. But he said he felt confident of the 25-year-old Yang.

As for women's saber, which has not been an Olympic event, China expects its young team to learn from veteran fencers and make some improvement, Wang said.

Meanwhile, fencing fans might view fierce battles in men's epee among European fencers. Five of the top eight fencers of the latest world championship will take part in the competition, Wang said.

(China.org.cn 08/21/2001)