Long and winding road for China' men to catch up with women at Olympics

Chinese men are still trekking on a long and winding road to narrow down the medal gap between themselves and the women's team at the Beijing Olympic Games, having reduced the difference in gold medals to 20-25 compared with a more drastic 4-12 at Barcelona in 1992.

By Wednesday, Chinese athletes have won 79 medals -- including 45 golds at the Beijing Olympic Games. Twenty of the golds went to men and 25 to women. While both have taken seven silvers, Chinese men also lag behind the women with a shortfall of nine bronzes.

"In my country, men and women are equal and we women are able to do everything as well as men," said gold winning weightlifter Chen Yanqing after retaining her 58kg title last week.

Nearly 60 years after Chinese women were put alongside men at production lines and other jobs outside home, it is the men who have been trying hard to catch up with women since Barcelona in 1992.

Chinese women took 12 golds at those Games, including four in swimming, two in diving, two in table tennis and one each in 10,000-meter walk, 72kg class judo, skeet and gymnastics. The men's team took four golds, one each in diving, gymnastics, shooting and table tennis.

The gap was reduced greatly at Atlanta, with the men/women gold tally standing at seven to nine, but rebounded to 11.5 to 16.5 in Sydney 2000, with one mixed gold in badminton, and staggered to 12.5 to 19.5 at Athens in 2004.

The outstanding performances of Chinese women are to a large extent attributed to their male teammates, who spent much time practicing with women in order to boost the latter's overall strength.

On the other hand, experts have interpreted the gap from anatomic perspective, saying Chinese women are rather similar to Western women in form and physical strength, while Chinese men are far behind their Western peers.

Despite their smaller build, Chinese men are eager to prove they can do as good as women, at least in sports where China enjoys traditional advantages, gymnastics and weightlifting, for example.

Four years after leaving Athens with only one gold, the Chinese gymnastics team have learned from their mistakes and carefully prepared themselves for revenge on home soil.

By Tuesday, Chinese men have won seven out of the country's nine golds in gymnastics, with Li Xiaopeng, 27, taking his 16th world title and fourth Olympic gold to surpass former gymnastic legend Li Ning as China's golden gymnast.

Twenty-year-old Zou Kai won his third Olympic gold on Tuesday in horizontal bars, following two earlier titles in floor exercise and men's team.

"Today's success is due to the hard work, confidence and excellent skills of our gymnasts," said Huang Yubin, one of the coaches for the men's team, after Tuesday's competitions. "After the failure in Athens, we put all the critical media reports up on the walls of our gyms.

It had the desired effect on the team, who dazzled the judges and fans at the Beijing Games with their stunning displays of strength, skills and determination to win a team title as well as individual golds in individual all-around, floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, parallel and horizontal bars.

"After four years of hard work, I think the gymnasts have made a very impressive comeback and are among the biggest highlights at these Games," said Xiao Tian, deputy chef de mission of the Chinese delegation and deputy head of the sports administration.

While playing on home soil did boost the Chinese players' confidence, Xiao said their failure in Athens was rather "accidental". "It's not that they were not good, but rather, they failed to bring their techniques into full play last time."

With four more days to go before China's almost certain top finish of the Beijing Games, Xiao said Chinese men have seemingly narrowed the gap with women.

Besides gymnastics, better scores in men's weightlifting have also helped Chinese men to hold up their half of the sky.

Chinese strongmen have seized four, or half, of all the weightlifting golds at the Beijing Games, compared with two out of three in Athens. "As far as weightlifting is concerned, our men and women have all demonstrated their best performances -- everything was perfect," said Xiao.

Cui Dalin, another deputy chef de mission, gave all athletes thumbs up at a press conference on Saturday, halfway into the competitions. "Our men and women have all been doing well at these Games. The young men, in particular, are on their way to reverse women's dominance on the medal tally."

Though Monday's sudden pullout of top Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang for foot injuries saddened all domestic fans and dashed one of the host country's most-coveted gold medal, the absolute majority of the public agreed it was not fair to crunch Liu alone with the high expectations of the 1.3 billion Chinese.

China decided to popularize athletics, swimming and other internationally dominant sports among its youngsters at the start of the century, but the campaign has been rather sluggish at schools given the lack of proper facilities in the countryside and overburden of schoolwork for city kids.

Yet despite the country's top position on the Olympic gold tally, China still needs to train more Liu Xiang, Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps type of athletes for future Olympics -- and more importantly, for the overall improvement of its people's health.

The country has also been training harder for the "big ball games" -- with the immediate effects being its men's volleyball and basketball teams entering top eight at the Olympics.

The men's volleyball team, long overshadowed by the glory of the women players who won five consecutive world championships since the early 1980s, have also made history at the Beijing Games by making top eight despite their loss to Italy on Monday. It failed to enter semifinals though, after Wednesday's loss 0-3 to defending champion Brazil.

Before Beijing, their sole Olympic show dated back to 1984, when China appeared at the Los Angeles Games as the replacement team and finished the last in the eight competitors.

The women's volleyball and basketball teams, meanwhile, have both entered semifinals.

With Wednesday's defeat to Lithuania 68-94 in the quarter-final, the men's basketball team repeated their eighth-place finishing in Athens and failed to live up to their commitments of making a breakthrough on home soil.

Despite their shattered dream, avid fans vowed continued support for the 7-foot-6 NBA star Yao Ming and his team. "I support you for ever. I'll never take your victory as a 'miracle', no matter how long I have to wait," said a netizen named "kiysan_dweb9" at sina.com.

While women's soccer team still won sympathy and support after being knocked out in the quarterfinal, many Chinese fans refuse even to talk about the men's team. All were infuriated by their 0-2 defeat on Aug. 10 to Belgium and even worse, by defender Tan Wangsong and midfielder Zheng Zhi's kicking and elbowing of their opponents. Both were sent off after the attacks.

"I really don't know where the men's soccer team is leading now, after decades of promises to 'take dominance in Asia and march into the world'", said Beijing soccer fan Zeng Tao. "I see no hope in them."