Short track speed skating looking for new spearhead

SHANGHAI - Zhao Yinggang, director of China's winter sports administrative center, said Sunday that there's no leading figure in China's short track speed skating national team right now and they are looking for one from the younger generation.

"After Olympic champion Yang Yang's retirement, Wang Meng had become the leader of the team," said Zhao. "But as the deadline for Wang's suspension is still unknown, the team now has no leader now, and for the sake of the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, we hope someone can stand out to take the responsibility."

Four-time Olympic champion Wang was expelled from the national team last August for punching team manager Wang Chunlu after breaking the team curfew and coming back to the team base drunk. And the 27-year-old has been banned from all kinds of domestic competitions including the National Winter Games in January and the ongoing Shanghai Worlds.

Wang is the most decorated Chinese Winter Olympic athlete ever with four gold medals, a silver and a bronze.

Zhou Yang, who snatched the women's 1,500m and 3,000m relay team golds alongside Wang at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, also disqualified for the Worlds.

With the absence of Wang and Zhou, China relied on younger skaters at the ISU Short Track Speedskating Worlds and managed to claim four golds and two silvers.

"We had expected to win at least two gold medals," said Zhao. "So the results are very good to me. It is not easy as the World Championships is the most important competition in the year and all the countries sent their strongest skaters here."

Spotlights were on teenager Fan Kexin, who retained her title at the women's 500m at the Worlds. However, the 18-year-old didn't think she is the successor of Wang.

"I am still young and compared with Wang Meng, I still have a lot of things to learn," said modest Fan. "I have never thought about to become the leader of the team as Wang and Yang Yang."

According to Zhao, Fan has great potential. "Fan is only 18 and her performance in 500m is perfect," he said.

Unknown Li Jianrou claimed the women's 1,500m and all-around titles and China also won the women's 3,000m relay.

Although the men's team didn't win a medal, Zhao said they also made some improvement. "Compared with the world first class skaters, our men still need to learn a lot. But they are improving," he said. "We need to find the problems first and then to solve them."