Special report:   2008 Olympic Games 

    WUHAN, Central China, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Fencing Association (CFA) refused to put pressure on their fencers' shoulders especially when they are awaiting the Olympic Games at home.

    An article named "China guarantees a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics" was released on the www.fencing.net, saying that Chinese fencers are able to win at least one gold from the Beijing Olympics.

    CFA head Ji Daoming said they are to strive for gold medals at the Beijing Olympics but they don't want to guarantee anything so as to lay less meaningless pressure on the fencers as preparing for the Games.

    Ji said that winning Olympic tickets for all disciplines will be the top priority for Chinese fencing team.

    "Guarantee a gold in Beijing? It's not proper to put it that way." said Ji during the 10-day City Games, a domestic multi-sport games on youth level.

    "Now we set our sights on four events, namely men's and women's epee, men's foil and women's saber, and we will make efforts in the lead-up to the 2008 Games.

    "I have to say, no one can guarantee that Chinese fencers can win a gold at Beijing. It caused much meaningless pressure," added Ji.

    Chinese fencers have approached Olympic gold very closely these years as they bagged three silvers at Athens in 2004 and one silver and one bronze at Sydney in 2000.

    So the tremendous pressure is what they have to face in the next Olympics, especially when it will be held on home soil in 2008.

    "Currently, the Chinese fencing team consists mainly of young fencers who are still inexperienced and perform unstably. In addition, the coaches are also young.

    "Many young fencers are technically strong, but some of them tend to have a stage fright on home soil," said Ji.

    After the Athens Olympics in 2004, a large number of veterans, including the well-known "Three Musketeers" of the Chinese foil team Wang Haibin, Ye Chong and Dong Zhaozhi, retired, and the coaching group was also adjusted, with Wang Haibin, Zhao Gang and other young coaches taking over.

    "I'm satisfied with the coaching re-shuffle. Those young coaches added new blood to training methods and offered more competing experience to those young fencers," said Ji.

    "And also we're glad to have Christian Bauer to coach our sabre team. In the year under his coaching, Chinese saber fencers have made marked progress thanks to his unique and advanced training concepts and methods."

    In August 2006, the well-known Frenchman, who succeeded in coaching France and Italy to the Olympic gold medals, was appointed China's foil head coach.

    "So we hope to achieve better results from the Olympics at home but we don't allow meaningless pressure to be put on their shoulders," added Ji.

    China was coming onto the fencing map when Luan Jujie won the women's foil title in 1984, the only gold medal in the Olympics for China.