China beat Slovak 5-3 here on Wednesday to enjoy their first victory in the women's ice hockey competition in the 24th Winter Universiade, to be officially opened this evening.

China's victory was also marked as the first win in the Winter Universiade women's ice hockey history as the event became the compulsory program since the Harbin Winter Universiad.

"We didn't have a dream start and made some mistakes in the first period, but players did fight well later and that's why we won," said Paul Strople, head coach of the Chinese team.

China opened the scoring at 13:25 through veteran Sun Rui to take the lead. Though Slovak wakened their momentum in the second period to level the score at 3-3, Sun Rui and her teammate Jin Fengling found home in 48:14 and 52:42 respectively on power play opportunities to seal the victory for China.

"The Winter Universiad gives us a good chance to learn from other strong teams in the world. All the players are from the national team, and we want to get prepared for the Vancouver Winter Olympics through the Universiade," said Li Danping, vice-president of the Chinese Ice Hockey Association.

China, seventh place winner in the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, qualified for the Vancouver Winter Olympics last year.

(Xinhua News Agency February 18, 2009)