A more balanced show

China's sailor Xu Lijia celebrates as she crosses the finish line to win gold in the women's Laser Radial class during the medal race at the London 2012 Olympic Games in Weymouth and Portland, southern England, on Monday. Xu's success in sailing, traditionally a Western-dominated sport, testified to China's growing overall sports power. Pascal Lauener / Reuters

China's sports chief happy with strides in mainstream events, Sun Xiaochen reports.

Despite delivering the best overseas Olympic performance in London, China remained humble about its competitive sports achievements because of gaps with world powerhouses in some mainstream events.

After claiming 38 gold medals to come in second after the United States in the final medal tally, the Chinese delegation bagged its best haul in history, aside from its 51 gold at the Beijing Games four years ago.

London marked major breakthroughs for China in many less-developed events.

Among its 73 medal-winning events, China grabbed maiden titles in eight sports, including the men's 20km race walk (Chen Ding), the women's laser radial sailing (Xu Lijia) and the women's epee team (Li Na, Luo Xiaojuan, Sun Yujie and Xu Anqi).

Chinese swimmers scooped five gold, two silver and three bronze in the Western-dominated pool to finish second after the US team's record medal count.

Swimming prodigies Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen made history by smashing two world records in the men's 1,500m freestyle and the women's 400m individual medley with eye-popping performances.

The track cycling, synchronized swimming and modern pentathlon contingents also respectively clinched their first Olympic silver medals, showing huge improvements compared with the last Games.

Meanwhile, its traditional strengths in table tennis, badminton, diving, gymnastics, shooting and weightlifting contributed to the total. It swept all nine titles in two racket sports, while producing 17 in the others.

"Our relatively average medal distribution suggested our competitive sports development is more balanced than before," Liu Peng, the delegation chief and sports minister, said at the final briefing on Sunday.

"While we've continued to perform well in our traditional bests, we have also improved in many events in which we'd lagged."

Liu urged the country to close gaps with sports powerhouses.

"While we've improved, we still lag behind the world's elite in reserve talent cultivation and grassroots promotion in some major events like cycling and track and field," Liu said.

Liu also expressed concerns about China's lackluster performances in team ball events and told their governing bodies to strive harder.

"Ball events are highly professional and globally popular," Liu said.

"We didn't improve, while the world is growing. The gap is enlarging, and this should be an alert for us to work harder."

None of the five qualified ball teams medaled. Women's volleyball did the best, coming in fourth, and men's basketball did the worst, having been eliminated at the pool stage.

These failures can be attributed to the lack of new blood and advanced coaching, Liu said.

While promising talent is emerging in the pool and on the track, injury-plagued veterans, including 35-year-old Wang Zhizhi and 31-year-old Miao Lijie, still play pivotal roles in both the men's and women's hoop squads and struggled to make the difference.

Meanwhile, Liu also defended Ye against doping suspicions after the 16-year-old's impressive 400m IM performance.

"Some people and foreign media stated groundless suspicions and slandered our athletes' elite performances without solid proof," Liu said.

"They issued reckless and unfair allegations."

Ye broke the world record in the 400m IM with a last-leg freestyle sprint that was faster than US male swimmer Ryan Lochte's equivalent in the same race.

Pundits, led by a US coach John Leonard, alleged her superb final 100m could be explained by drug use.

British Olympic Association Chairman Colin Moynihan later told a news conference that the World Anti-Doping Agency tested Ye and found she was clean.

"China stringently follows the world anti-doping code and implemented a series of strict testing processes and tough penalties," Liu said.

"Our anti-doping work has earned praise from the IOC and the WADA. Skeptics should stick to the facts and learn to respect clean athletes and their results."

Liu also praised Chinese athletes' ethics, citing players' magnanimities in the face of controversial officiating.

Disputed refereeing, which stripped China of several gymnastics and cycling titles, partially spoiled the country's jubilant winning streak and destroyed some athletes' Olympic dreams.

But the affected players, including men's gymnast Chen Yibing, female cyclists Guo Shuang and Gong Jinjie, and hammer thrower Zhang Wenxiu, all accepted the final determinations after their appeals were turned down.

"They showed great sportsmanship while delivering elite performances despite controversial refereeing decisions," Liu said.

Liu also declared strong disapproval of the women's badminton match-fixing scandal, in which two leading Chinese athletes were among four pairs disqualified for trying to lose to manipulate the knockout draw.

(China Daily 08/13/2012 page12)