With one eye firmly on the Beijing Olympics in less than two years' time, China is concentrating on team success as it showcases several youngsters at the world gymnastics championships in Aarhus, Denmark, this week.

With Chen Yibing, Dong Zhendong and Zou Kai in the men's team and four women - Pang Panpan, Zhou Zhuoru, He Ning and Huang Lu - all making their world championship debuts, half the Chinese team have no previous experience of competition at this level.

"It's like a promotion for the young gymnasts," manager Zhang Peiwen said before the team departed for Europe.

"It takes time but it is necessary for them to become well known to the international judges. We are, of course, preparing for the 2008 Olympics."

The men's team have been robbed by injury of Olympic champions Li Xiaopeng, Teng Haibin and Huang Xu but can count on experienced gymnasts such as defending pommel champion Xiao Qin as well as 2000 Olympic team gold winner Yang Wei.

On the women's side, 20-year-old Zhang Nan and last year's vault gold medallist Cheng Fei, 18, will be the veterans on a young team in Denmark.

"When we made our selections, we were mainly concerned about the balance needed for the team competition," Zhang added. "The team events have the first priority."

The Chinese men won the team gold at the 2000 Olympics and the 2003 world championships but finished fifth at the 2004 Olympics, while the women's team took a bronze at Sydney, then fourth place at Anaheim three years ago and seventh at Athens.

"It's the most important gold if you're thinking about supremacy in the gymnastic world and we are all brought through by the Chinese national sports system," Chen Yibing, 22, told reporters at the training centre in Beijing. "I'm quite confident about the rings, but I'll concentrate on the team competition first."

New manoeuvre

Melbourne world title winners Cheng and Xiao are still the best hopes in the individual events.

"My wish is to achieve good results again and to make a breakthrough on the pommels at home in 2008, at least it should be better than I did in Athens," said Xiao, who gave an error-ridden performance and came home empty-handed from the last Olympics.

Teenager Li Ya has developed a new manoeuvre on the asymmetric bars and is another good prospect, according to women's team coach Lu Shanzhen.

"Her starting score should be 17.5, the highest degree of difficulty," Lu said of the 18-year-old. "If she can perform it successfully, it should be confirmed and named by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) as the 'Li Ya spring'."

Li was already carrying off the skill eight times out of 10 attempts, Zhang added.

"My only competitor is myself," said Li.

Head coach Huang Yubin, who has been charged with securing a record medal tally on home soil in 2008, said the world championships was another key step on the road to the Olympics.

"Our goal in this world championships is getting to know our rivals and testing our youngsters."

(China Daily October 11, 2006)