China should lean upon young athletes to put their archery gold drought behind, China's archery management chief Zhou Yuan said at the Chinese City Games on Wednesday.

"As far as I'm concerned, China should rely on young archers at the Olympic Games," said Zhou. "Young athletes have the wallop that the veteran does not have. They get nothing to lose."

China has finished second place for four times at Olympic Games but failed to win a gold in archery. China lost to South Korea by one point in women's team event at the Athens Games 2004.

"We have been the runners-up for four times, so the fans really want us to break the gold drought," said Zhou.

Zhou's point of view reckoning on youngsters was echoed by the City Games results.

Xing Yu from Beijing Shunyi scored a total of 343 points out of 36 arrows to improve the national record by five points on Tuesday.

The 16-year-old's 343 points out of three rounds in the final is only three points adrift of the world record set by South Korean Park Song Min in 2001.

In women's individual, 14-year-old Huang Wanping from Xiamen scored remarkable results in with 110, 112 and 108 points in the final, semifinal and quarterfinal apiece.

"It's the highest level in China this year. Both in the men's and the women's individual events, we see top performances from the teenagers at the City Games," said Zhou.

"Maybe the talented youngsters like Xing and Huang are not likely to play the 2008 Olympics, but they let us see China's perspective in the 2012 London Games.

"These young marksmen will some day win China's first Olympic gold medal."

"Some of the archers at City Games reached the top level in China and even worldwide," added Zhou, adding Chinese archers are capable of winning Olympics.

Chinese team suffered humiliating defeat in the Olympic trial in August with only Zhang Juanjuan advancing into women's last eight. Their results in the Olympic try-out were not in match with those at City Games.

The City Games functions as a cradle to dig talented athletes backing up further progress of China's sport. The brilliant archery scores from teenagers boost confidence in the sport.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2007)