JILIN, Northeast China, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Despite sweeping the medals in the women's 7.5km sprint in the opening-day snow sports competition of the Asian Winter Games, China's head coach Klaus Siebert said that the hosts' biathletes should learn from Europe in all respects.

    "China boasts of many promising athletes now and some of them have become famous while racing in Europe, but they still have a lot of work to do to reach the top level," said Siebert, who has been with the Chinese biathlon team for about six months.

    Chinese women biathletes made a flying start on Monday as they had a clean sweep of the top three of the 7.5km sprint competition, with veteran Liu Xianying winning the first gold medal in Asiad snow sports for China.

    "Europe is the number one in biathlon, China must send more athletes to compete in the World Cup or World Championships.

    "And I hope China can hold more biathlon competitions on home soil and broadcast the matches on TV.

    "In Europe, biathlon is so popular that tens of thousands of fans climb up the mountains to watch the competitions on the spot.

    "But here in China, we just have 20 professional athletes or so, and the sports fans do not have much interest in winter sports."

    Siebert has been a successful biathlete winning three gold medals at the World Championships and one overall World Cup title during the 80s.

    Athletes paid tribute to the German coach, who had worked with the German and Austrian national squads before coming to China.

    "The head coach brought about change to the Chinese team technically, we have been benefited a lot from his training, and we performed very well in last season's World Cup," said Liu, winner of the women's 7.5km sprint.

    Siebert signed a contract with the Chinese biathlon team until 2008.