Defend Team's title without grip on gold

Tencent Sports: According to convention, Olympic gymnastics competitions kick off at the second day after the opening ceremony. Chinese men’s gymnastics team is among the earliest members of Chinese Delegation to check into Olympic Village as result. Once arriving at the Village, it’s officially entering Olympic countdown and preparations are into the final phase. It’s also the most tormenting period of time team’ head coach, Huang Yubin as well as for other coaches.

"We are making our way to the Olympic Village, with one week left, to make the final dash toward the finish-line.” Coach Huang admitted that “At this juncture, it’s not to add volume but to fine tune players’ condition to the best level. Communications between players and coaches should be enhanced from both training and psychological perspectives. It’s critical to adapt to the living environment of the Village including its food, accommodation and transportation. We should get familiarized with the details like the arrival time to the competition site of shuttle bus, and we must experience personally and get used to the new environment in comprehensive way instead of focusing on certain point.”

"This is the very tormenting period of time. It poses huge challenges to coaches on how to design the high-quality trainings for our athletes while avoiding injury and illness.” Coach Huang acknowledged.

As the golden generation represented by Yang Wei and Li Xiaopeng retires, the overall strength of Chinese Men’s Team slides to some extent and the gap with the perennial rival, Japan, has gradually narrowed. It’s a great challenge for both players and coaches of Men’s Team to defend the title at London Olympics. “We are capable of winning but it’s very difficult to say that the gold is firmly under our grip. The result of athletic sports is hard to predict, and we should have a clear view of our strength in our preparations, adjusting our psychological and mental state and deliver our best performance at the competition.” Coach Huang emphasized that many teams especially top three at World Championships are all capable of capturing the craved gold medal.

"This year’s Olympics adopt 5-3-3 competition format which put Chinese team at disadvantage. I said before that unlike Japanese players who lean on all-round with strong backup, our players excel at individual events. We only have these many players. One radish,one hole. The level of our top three players is very high but without the fourth person to back them up. It’s the difficult area for us to make strategic decisions like allocating player.” Reality is part of historical legacy and one can't make bricks without straw. For Coach Huang like a general at battleground, it’s only realistic to best deploy his troops under the current circumstances. “So we can’t promise you team gold, but we will give maximum efforts to fight for it because team gold is very significant. No matter team competition, all-round or individual events, we will never give up the chance of grabbing the gold. For coaches and players, we have been preparing for this finale for four years and for many players who will probably not compete at next Olympics. We treasure this opportunity very much.” Coach Huang affirmed.