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ATHENS, Aug. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese women's hockey team, nicknamed "snow lotuses", failed to win the first Olympic hockey medal for China in the bronze medal play-off, losing to Argentina 0-1 Thursday.
The two teams finished an uneventful first half of the bronze medal play-off, both of which seemed to be not recovering from the penalty stroke defeats in their semi-finals.
World champions Argentina made more shots and circle penetrations, while China, unhappy with its failure of not converting ten penalty corners into one score during the semi-final against weaker Germany, played great defense in the first half.
There was a consistent pattern emerging in this half, with Argentina looking dangerous if they have the ball up front.
However, Chinese girls were managing to counter-attack on Argentina's turnovers and then they succeeded in holding the ball at the opponents' field for three or four minutes at a time.
The performances of both teams improved in the second half withfaster attacks.
Chinese girls won their first penalty corner in the half, however, they failed to make it a score, and held a 0-0 tie till the last minute.
Argentina was lucky to penetrate the solid defense in the last minute, with Aymar's powerful shot.
She trapped the ball from a free hit on the right, ran into space and hit the ball past Nie high into the net, winning the whole match for Argentina.
"I deeply regret the result, and feel sorry to Chinese hockey girls," said Kim Chang Back, the head coach for the Chinese national hockey team.
About his future career, Kim said it depends on the Chinese Hockey Association and the athletes in the national team.
He also called on the public in China to pay much more attention to Chinese hockey.
Argentine coach Sergio Vigil said the Chinese team is really tremendous, and "they play hockey very well".
About Kim Chang Back, Sergio said Kim had a "very terrific career" by bringing the Chinese team to one of the four best teams throughout the world from 17th ranking. Enditem | 
