China to test Olympic hopefuls in Doha

Shanghai: China is sending a largely inexperienced team to next month's Asian Games, a tactic it says is aimed at grooming future Olympians.

Of the 647 athletes on the Chinese roster, 413 - or nearly 64 per cent - will be participating in their first major international games, Chinese officials say. They're young too - just 23.3 years old on average.

It raises inevitable questions about what the seasoned athletes are doing as the 2008 Olympics approaches in Beijing.

"We want to temper young athletes and get them up to speed faster," said Feng Jianzhong, a vice- president of the All-China Sports Federation who will help lead the delegation to the Games in Doha, Qatar.

"We want them to get a feel for competition, to build up experience and get ready for the Beijing Olympics," Feng said.

Despite that lack of experience, China says it still hopes to lead the medals tally at the Games, as it has in every edition since 1982.

China's team is slightly larger than the 628-member squad that rival Japan is sending, and does include a few famous names, including 110-metre hurdles world record holder Liu Xiang.

Many other Chinese Olympians will be staying home though, including distance runner Xing Huina and 100-metres breaststroke champion Luo Xuejuan.

Some foreign critics question why proven athletes are not taking part in international competition, the conventional way of preparing for a major event.

When China's swimmers picked up only five medals at the last world championships in Montreal, other national coaches said it raised suspicions.

China's swimming programme was tainted in the 1990s, when 32 of its swimmers alone were caught for drug offences, two of them twice.

In the wake of those scandals, the country introduced tough new testing regimes and penalties, punishing 17 athletes in 2004 with fines and competition bans of up to two years.

"It raises suspicions when they're not being the best they can be," Dave Salo, US men's coach, said following the Montreal meet. "It's a concern that we're going to get to Beijing and they haven't done anything for three years, then all of a sudden there's going to be guys in the final that we've never heard of."

John Leonard, head of the American Swimming Coaches Association, went even further, questioning whether China is secretly training a squad of promising swimmers outside the glare of international competition.