Sports stars sparkled in Star City

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, October 20, 2003

Sports stars sparkled in Star City

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The Chinese City Games, which was inaugurated in 1988, has been a cradle to nourish sports potentials, but in Changsha, capital city of Hunan Province, the fifth city games is by no means short of such sports stars as world and Olympic champions.

The widely-known names as Liu Xuan, Xiong Ni, Lu Li, Li Xiaopeng, Gong Zhichao, Li Xiaopeng and Luo Xuejuan, Tan Xue are sparkling in or out of competitions in Changsha, with its byname as Star City.

In order to further publicize the City Games and promote the image of the host city, organizers have acquired local Olympic champions as goodwill ambassadors, who have been doing their utmost for the success of the sports gala.

Xiong Ni, a diving genius in the last decade, collected three gold medals from Atlanta and Sydney Olympics. After his retirement in 2000, Xiong Ni finished his university education andbegan to run a diving school in Hunan province.

Xiong is not the only one who acted as goodwill ambassadors forthe games. Barcelona Olympics gymnastics gold medal winner Lu Li,Sydney Olympic gold medalists Liu Xuan, Li Xiaopeng, Yang Xia and Gong Zhichao all felt more than proud to do their bits for the games.

Lu Li, who won the women's uneven bar gold medal with a perfectroutine performance in Barcelona, returned from the United States for the games. "I am very happy back home and I really wish that Icould stay a little big longer," said Lu Li, who now runs a gymnastics club in California.

When the ex-Olympic champions are playing their roles for a better stage of the games, such world champions as Luo Xuejuan andTan Xue are making their efforts to give their best performance onit.

The City games, which were usually contests between cities showing out their sports commitment, have the flavor of cradling future stars being prepared for the 2008 Olympic Games and attractmost of the youth elites of the country.

Luo, gold medalist of the women's 50m and 100m breast stroke and 4x100m medley race at the World Swimming Championships last July in Barcelona, gave unprecedented excitement in the pool to the fans of Changsha, a medium-size capital city of Hunan Provincein central China.

"The competition is a part in my training schedule for next year's Olympic Games, but I will try to win as more golds as I can," said the 19-year-old triple world swimming champion from Hangzhou.

Qi Hui, world record holder of women's 200m breaststroke here competing for Fuzhou delegation, will meet Luo in the tournament.

The star-packed swimming competition also includes champion swimmers at Busan Asiad Yang Yu from Hangzhou, Zhou Yafei from Qingdao, Zhan Shu from Shenyang and Wu Peng from Hangzhou, which bring in as much enthusiasm as possible.

The fencing competition also became one of the favorite events in the 20-day tournament as China's first world champion of women's sabre Tan Xue heading the list. Her national teammates Bao Yingying, Huang Haiyang and Zhang Ying, who helped China win a team gold of women's sabre at the 14th Asian Games last October, are also here to challenge the 19-year-old Tianjiner as the Nanjing and Shanghai fencing teams take credit for them.

Hunan-based national Wang Mingjuan, who has broken the world weightlifting record of women's 48kg category three times, lost the strife for gold in the category with her national teammate GaoWei, 2001 world champion from Shenyang.

In the field of shooting, promising stars raising at Busan Asiad Du Li from Zibo, Shandong province will have to face her national teammate Zhao Yinghui, who picked a team gold of women's air rifle at Busan and compete here for Shijiazhuang.

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