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Claiming their first Winter Olympic gold medal from short track speed skating at Salt Lake City four years ago, the Chinese, who enjoyed their strongest showing ever in the Summer Olympics in Athens in 2004 with 32 gold medals, are expecting a breakthrough on snow at the upcoming Turin Winter Olympic Games.

The record 76-athlete-team for Turin, for the first time ever has an overwhelming number of snow event competitors compared to ice event competitors.

China's first Olympic medal on snow was won by Xu Nannan at 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, and the women's freestyle aerials team have big hopes to repeat that this year.

Made up of a group of world cup series stage champions, the team is confident of victory at present.

"Our team is strong as a whole and no matter who misses the Games, we are confident of good results at Turin," said Li Nina, China's first freestyle skiing aerials world champion.

Since Xu has recently returned to the event following a severe injury and Guo Xinxin has managed movements with almost the highest difficulty level in the world, China will be able to send its strongest ever aerials team to Turin this time.

The fourth member of the team is yet to be announced and may be one of three young girls Zhang Xin, Wang Jiao and Cheng Shuang, all of whom have achieved the top three positions during the world cup series.

The team also promised that they would not repeat the errors like four years ago. At 2002 Salt Lake City's Winter Olympic Games, Xu, the 1998 silver medallist, missed out on the podium due to faults that occurred because of the huge amount of pressure on her for the event.

"At the last Games, all the pressure was on Xu alone. But this time, all of us will share the pressure together," said Li. "We will compete for gold in a more relaxed manner."

Besides the freestyle aerials event, China also has eyes on better results for the biathlon.

With Chinese athletes reaching the top three positions at last season's world cup series and 2005 Biathlon World Championships, China is now more confident in this event.

"The best result that China achieved in this event is fifth and our women's team is strong at present," said Wang Yitao, secretary general of the Chinese team. "We hope for better results than at the last Games."

Take part for experience

As for the other snow events, China is so weak that their aim of participating in the Games is merely to practice and gain experience for the future Games.

"Our level in some snow events, like snowboarding, ski jumping, Alpine skiing and cross country skiing, is pretty low," said Wang. "We just want these teams to practice and raise their level."

Wang hopes that China will be able to catch up countries strong in these events as soon as possible and all the four teams have been sent to train abroad in recent years and some foreign coaches have been invited over.

These efforts have helped achieve some satisfactory results.

"Having only started in China three years ago, the snowboard half pipe event has developed quickly," said Wang. "It has become more and more popular in China now and Pan Lei claimed the silver medal at last year's Universiade."

Pan and Sun Zhifeng, 14, the youngest athletes in the whole delegation, will make the Olympic debut in the event for China.

"With increased popularity in the sport, Alpine skiing has significantly developed in recent years," said Wang. "We hope that our athletes will finish top among Asian competitors in Turin."

China will also enter for the first time in ski jumping.

Sponsored by Gericom, an Austrian computer company, five Chinese skiers were selected to train in Austria in April 2003. They have made some improvements over the past two years. Tian Zhandong, 22, became the first Chinese to accumulate World Cup ranking points last season by being placed 48 in Austria.

Though the Chinese skiers are outsiders in the most dominant of all winter Olympic events, they hope to use the Turin experience as a springboard for the 2010 Vancouver Games.

"We need time to catch up with other countries," said Koch Heinz, China's Austrian coach of the ski jumping team. "There is a long way to go."

(China Daily February 7, 2006)