The Chinese City Games is regarded as a platform both for
athletes to turn from nobody to somebody, and for coaches to scout
hopefuls. However, the ongoing 6th edition of the Games mirrors
China's poor backup in women's basketball.
The previous City Games churned out many super stars like
Olympic champions Deng Yaping in table tennis, Li Xiaoshuang in
gymnastics and Wang Junxia in long distance running. But in women'
s basketball, few star buds were discovered this time.
Eleven teams competed from October 20 to 28, but the
semifinalists remained the same with last edition, including title
holder Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenyang and Harbin.
Gong Luming, former head coach of Chinese women's basketball
team, said: "The above cities are still the strongest in
China."
"On the whole level in the competition, I think they played OK
but few hopefuls are discovered this time," he added. "They should
have been physically stronger and strengthen their footwork."
Actually, many of the teenage girls have good physique. The
Guangzhou team has three centers over 195cm tall. But their basic
skills are far from satisfactory. For example, more than ten
palmings took place in several matches.
Even Wei Wei, 207cm tall and dubbed "female Yao Ming", and Guan
Xin, former member of Chinese National team, were also not in their
form.
Wei, representing Guangzhou, never appeared in the starting
lineup during the whole tourney.
"Wei should have become a leading player in national team but
she is still too weak in strength and not forceful in the paint,"
Gong said.
Zheng Wei, coach of Guangzhou team, said: "We have noticed their
problems and try to improve that. As for next year's Olympics, I
think most of them will miss that since they are not good
enough."
Another reason for China's poor backup in women's basketball is
most teams pay much more attention to athletes' height so as to
seek quick success.
"This makes it unbalanced between centers and players in other
positions," said Zheng: "Thus many good players are
overlooked."
"Women's basketball is not popular in China. Compared with men's
basketball, we don't have many fans and sponsors. All this makes it
hard for us to select players."
Another fact should not be ignored. Ever since the Chinese
women's basketball team became the runners-up in 1992 Barcelona
Olympic Games, they only came 9th in the following two Games. The
situation became worse when they didn't qualify for the Athens
Games.
"Those bad results make some young talents dare not take up the
sport because they can not see any hopes," added Zheng.
In 1995, China inaugurated its men's professional basketball
league CBA. And in late 2001 WCBA took its first step in order to
catch up with men's basketball.
However, WCBA's market didn't work well. In 2004, Jiangsu team'
s sponsor Suning Global Group gave up their cooperation because
they didn't see any profit.
As Wang Du, deputy chief of Basketball Administration Center
under China's State General Administration of Sport, pointed out
earlier: "WCBA needs more than four or five years to make both ends
meet."
(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2007)