In the gear-up efforts towards Beijing Olympics, Chinese athletes committed to training heart and soul. The psychological promotion seems to lag behind as the archery team exposed in Beijing at the Olympic archery test event.

 

Chinese women team suffered early exit with 212-214 loss to Britain in the first elimination round at the International Hockey Tournament on Tuesday.

 

The hosts, world No. 2, was ranked in the sixth place after preliminaries, in which they had already betrayed the withering form.

 

In the elimination, Chinese archers, the Athens Olympics silver-taking team, found their forms still intangible. The women's team coach Lian Guofu deemed that Chinese archers are in trouble due to nervousness during the competition.

 

"The archers tried their best but some of the shooting was not dealt with very well due to their nervousness in fear of losing their advantage gained at the beginning," said Lian.

 

"It is a pity we got eliminated at the first round though the team shot six 10 points," added Lian.

 

It's not a pity, but a gain if the Chinese team can learn lessons from the tournament. After all, it's only a run-up to Olympics. The psychological strength is as important as contesting skill for victory as testified through numerous examples.

 

"Cask theory" is quite applicable here for skill-demanding sports like archery.

 

Chinese men's team was also less impressive in the preliminaries on Monday, finishing in eleventh. The men's team coach Guo Meizhen spelled a similar curse.

 

"Our men's team did not perform well. All the athletes are under huge pressure," said Guo. "There is really great pressure on the Chinese team. The athletes will practise harder hereafter."

 

"There is still a gap between the Chinese team and the world-class teams," added Guo.

 

International Archery Tournament, the Olympic test event, is one of a series of pre-Olympic test events in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

 

There are 113 archers from 27 nations and regions taking part in the "Good Luck Beijing" Olympic archery test slated for Aug. 20-26.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2007)