Veteran hopes for Olympic return

BEIJING - Softball veteran Wei Qiang believes her efforts to promote the former Olympic sport will eventually pay off.

Wei, 38, a core member of China's silver-medal winning team at the 1994 World Championships and 1996 Atlanta Olympics, was devastated by the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) decision in 2005 to throw softball and baseball out of the Games, starting with the 2012 London Olympics.

Although Wei, now head coach of the Beijing softball team and also the national youth team, is still uncomfortable while talking about the game's Olympic exclusion, she deals with it with a more positive attitude nowadays.