Lost vision of future

Chinese woman tennis player Li Na has expressed how she is now in something of a blank state of mind without any specific vision for the future after she lost to American Craybas Jill 1-2 in the ongoing China Open.

The injury-plagued player was quite overcome at the post-match conference, complaining that the environment of the national team was different from what she had been told before being recruited.

Medal hurdles overcome China's Liu Xiang added another title for himself within three days by winning the men's 110-metre hurdles gold medal at the all-star athletics tournament held on September 19 in Japan.

The gold medallist clocked a time of 13.08 seconds, 0.38 seconds faster than the runner-up, yet not as good as his 13.05 title winning time last Saturday at the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix.

Smooth as scheduled

Beijing Olympic organizers said on Tuesday that venue construction for the 2008 Games is progressing smoothly.

A total of 37 competition venues are needed with 31 planned in Beijing. Of the 11 venues to be built from scratch, 10 are already under construction. Beijing has promised to get all Olympic venues ready by the end of 2007 before test events.

Quarterfinal berth

Asian soccer champions China defeated hosts Peru 1-0 at the FIFA Under-17 World Championship on September 19 to put themselves on the verge of reaching the quarterfinals.

Deng Zhuoxiang struck the only goal of the game after just 13 minutes at Trujillo as the Chinese picked up all three points, moving to the top of Group A with four points after two matches. China still needs at least a draw in its final game against Ghana to secure its berth in the last eight.

(China Daily 09/22/2005 page9)