By Chang Ailing

    TURIN, Feb. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- With no surprise, Chinese biathletes in Monday's women's 15km individual didn't get anywhere to the Olympic podium. Once again, all failed in shooting.

    "I lost nine shots. It's really upsetting," said downcast Hou Yuxia, one of the four Chinese women biathletes who ranked 59th with 9 minutes and 11.6 seconds behind the gold medallist.

    Hou is perhaps one of the strongest skiers in biathlon, but has struggled mightily with her shooting. Only six other biathletes have a lower shooting percentage than Hou (65 percent), but she ranked 14th overall in this year's World Cup standings.

    Her strong skiing was well demonstrated with a fifth place in 2005/2006 individual in Hochfilzen, Austria, where she managed to only loose three shots. But she then missed nine targets in the Brezno-Orsblie competition to rank 67th in the race.

    "Shooting has always been my problem. Actually I felt pretty good before the race. I don't know how I lost so many shots in the race. It's disappointing," Hou said, smiling bitterly.

    The ex-cross-country skier has switched to biathlon for less than two years. "They (the other biathletes) have been shooting for over 10 years. I took the rifle only for a year or so. It will take some time for me to improve shooting," she said.

    However, Hou's problem is not particular in the Chinese biathlon team.

    Her team mate Liu Xianying bettered Hou in shooting but not much. Liu missed five shots in Monday's competition and finished 24th among 82.

    Liu was the most competitive biathlete in the Chinese team. In January 2005, she was denied her first World Cup biathlon victory, and a first for China too, when she fell over shortly before the finish line of the 10km pursuit in Ruhpolding, Germany. She had a comfortable lead when she fell on the final downhill slope allowing Russian Olga Pyleva to overtake her.

    Liu appeared quite frustrated with her performance at the Games. ¡°I did quite well in training. This (five missed shots) was far worse than my performance in training."

    The other two women biathletes Kong Yingchao and Yin Qiao finished 26th and 32nd, loosing three and four targets respectively.

    In addition to women biathletes, the Chinese men's team suffered from the same problem.

    Zhang Chengye, ranked 50th in the men's 20km individual on Saturday, missed seven shots. He was 6:26.1 behind the gold medalist of Germany's Michael Greis, who lost only one shot.

    "My rifle is as good as the foreign biathletes'. But I just couldn't do as well," he told Xinhua after competition. "My skiing was pretty good. The problem is shooting."

    Accurate shooting is a must for success in biathlon, which consists of both shooting and skiing.

    In each biathlon discipline, there are shooting stops along the course. At each stop, competitors have five bullets and five targets to hit. Each miss in the individual event adds one minute to the athlete's final time. Enditem