WINTER SPORTS NO LONGER A CHILL TO CHINA’S ATHLETES
Olympians close gap thanks to coaching by foreign experts
With China’s growing ambition to expand its winter sports prowess by 2022, a legion of foreign experts have pulled through cultural and acclimation challenges to help the country catch up with the world’s best on snow and ice.
Hours before the athletes arrived on the course for the women’s 10-kilometer crosscountry skiing at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on Feb 15, Norwegian Bjorn Kristiansen and assistant Bernhard Ronning were busy waxing and testing skis as part of a pre-race routine, which has been in the genes of the Scandinavian skiing culture but is relatively new in China.
They apply grip or glide wax to increase or decrease friction on the back surface of skis based on race discipline, temperatures and snow conditions so athletes can gain a slight but critical edge. It is a science of the endurance sport — just like changing tires on Formula One race cars to race on dry or wet circuits.
“You wake up, and you go to the venue to start waxing and testing the skis before your athletes come to train or race,” Kristiansen, head coach of China’s national crosscountry skiing team, said of his daily routine at the Alpensia Ski Center in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea.
“You have to prepare the skis based on conditions as close to the race as possible so your athletes can compete with the right gear for that specific session. Morning or evening, warm or cold, fresh snow or groomed ... they all make a difference.”
Kristiansen’s explanation coupled with Ronning’s craft of smoothing out a thin layer of wax on a ski using an electric iron offered a glimpse of the extensive expertise in competitive skiing, which China aims to learn in the buildup to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
To close the gap with strong winter sports nations in Europe and North America, China has hired 20 foreign coaches, fitness trainers and technical experts on its Pyeongchang delegation to help improve the level in various Westerndominated events, such as cross-country skiing, snowboarding, skeleton and biathlon.
“To make up for our weakness in winter sports, especially on snow, we have no better solutions than combining experiences from overseas
the world to win a World Cup title at 15 years, 200 days old, just one day older than Anais Caradeux of France, who did so in January 2006.
Missing links in the chain
Despite the encouraging improvements in Pyeongchang, the winning formula needs more ingredients to produce expected results at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, according to foreign coaches.
“The system doesn’t quite understand skeleton yet,” said Pain, who was hired for the Chinese bobsled and skeleton team in 2016.
“A team wins medals in this sport, not just one pilot. There should be a doctor, a physiotherapist, a coach and a manager. Our team at the moment is very small. We have to add a lot of missing pieces, absolutely,” said Pain, who won silver in the highly technical event at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics.
The relatively closed sports talentcultivating system in China, with less all-around education offered than athletic training, also has posed a challenge for elevating to the next level, said Peter Kolder, a Dutch long-track speed skating coach hired for the Chinese youth team.
“It’s not only about training,” said Kolder, a former mentor of Dutch four-time Olympic champion skater Sven Kramer. “Speed skating is not an easy sport, which technically requires a lot of knowledge about biology or biomechanics. The athletes have to receive more education to understand it so they train smarter and better.”
Citing examples of China’s strong sports such as table tennis, which attracts foreigners to train and play in the Chinese league, experts have suggested that the Chinese skiers should likewise stay more with their counterparts in the heart of winter sports.
China’s cross-country skiing coach Kristiansen said he has proposed a talent-improving plan centered on a training program in Europe to the Chinese governing body after a four-month fruitful camp in Finland leading up to the Pyeongchang Games.
The easier access to better training facilities and the exchange with world leaders in the mainstream circle of the sport will lift China quicker from a rookie to a competitor, said Kristiansen, 48.
“What is the issue in this sport is that it’s breathing and living in Europe. That means we probably should spend more time there. We need to overstep some climbs on the stairs,” said Kristiansen, the former national team coach of Estonia and Norway.
Although finishing 36th in the women’s 10km free, Chinese skier Li Xin narrowed her time gap with the winner in Pyeongchang to about two minutes and 40 seconds from five minutes at a World Cup event in Finland in November after the Europe training camp.
“We are kind of realistically oriented with both feet on the ground. But I believe there is a hope for the future toward 2022,” Kristiansen said.