WOG: Chinese hockey stars eyeing gold in Beijing  x3
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| International |
August 27, 2004 
Independent Online Sports
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By Jane Barrett
Athens - China's women's hockey team finished a highly creditable fourth at the Athens Olympics and have now set their sights on winning gold on home soil when the Games go to Beijing in 2008.
It is a far cry from 2000, when China only just qualified for the Sydney Games in a sport played by a few hundred people in a country of more than one billion.
Hockey - or "bent stick ball" as it is called in Chinese - comes well down the pecking order as the sportswoman's choice and many of China's players only picked up a hockey stick because they did not make soccer or basketball teams.
'Chinese sports leaders have a strong vision of where they want to be'
"Hockey needs greater support," said coach Kim Chang-back. "Our big problem is that it's relatively unknown among China's huge population."
A rigorous training programme is speeding the Chinese up the echelons of international hockey and they reached the dizzy heights of a Champions Trophy win in 2002.
Kim hopes such success will attract more girls to play so they can build a team to make the final climb to Olympic gold.
"There is great commitment at the national level to building a strong programme," said Kim, a South Korean who is one of several foreigners drafted in to improve Chinese sport.
"Most importantly, the Chinese sports leaders have a strong vision of where they want to be."
Unsurprisingly, that is top.
Their rapid climb from a scratch team put together for the 1990 Asian Games to world number four meant the weight of expectation was huge in Athens - possibly too high given how they froze in the semi-finals.
But overall, the Chinese were one of the most consistently impressive teams at the Olympics, their clinically neat stickwork and speed stunning spectators and opponents alike.
Now the search is on for new players.
"We identify athletic potential and they learn stick skills quickly," Kim said, putting paid to the notion that stickwork is the core, strength and speed come later.
Why?
"I think East Asians are generally dexterous, in part because they grow up eating with chopsticks," Kim said.
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