"Studying abroad" has been a trend among Chinese students for years but it only became popular with Chinese speed skating team in recent years and it worked well.

Chinese speed skating team achieved their goal at the 6th Asian Winter Games ahead of schedule after clinching another two gold medals to make it four in total on Wednesday. China only bagged one in last Games in Aomori, Japan in 2003.

"I am so happy that we have achieved our goal ahead of time," said speed skating official Xiao Hua of the State General Administration of Sports.

"The success owes greatly to our 'studying abroad' policy in recent years. It showed that our athletes indeed learned a lot from their foreign coach," said Xiao.

Chinese speed skating team established cooperative relation with a training base in Calgary, Canada where the 2010 winter Olympic Games will be held.

"The team has been sending athletes over there to train. Once there were as many as six of them training there," said Xiao.

"As long as we can afford it, we will keep doing it because as far as I am concerned, athletes can have better training conditions and expose to better methods," she said.

"Compared to those who are advanced in skating events, China is lagging behind in many ways now, so we should learn to catch up," she added.

Wang Beixing and Xing Aihua returned from Canada two weeks ago for the Games and their performance gave the speed skating team a big boost of confidence.

Wang, 21, eased to a new Asian record en route to the women's 500m victory before taking a silver in the 100m behind her study pal Xing.

Asian championships all-around winner Wang Fei pulled off the 3,000m and 1,500m titles.

"I like my coach and his way of training very much," said the 21-year-old Wang referring to her Canadian coach Kevin Crockett. "His training methods suit me well and help me improve a lot for the past three years."

Crockett, Nagano Olympic Games 500m bronze medalist, was happy to see some achievement made working with his Chinese students.

"I can see a big future in her. The sky is unlimited," said Crockett about Wang.

Crockett said he was on very good terms with the Chinese, both the athletes and the officials so he was rather optimistic about their future cooperation.

"My skaters trust me one hundred percent. They never question me. I think it is good because my training is very difficult and hard, so I have to have their entire confidence in me," he said.

"We have good relation with the Chinese speed skating team. I feel that we will have more Chinese athletes in Canada in the future," he said.
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(Xinhua News Agency February 1, 2007)