Taekwondo stars ready to kick off

The Chinese taekwondo team is fearless - even on the fashion runway.

During last month's National Taekwondo Championship, athletes from the national team put on a fashion show for the opening ceremony. Their smiles seemed to indicate their confidence ahead of the upcoming Olympics.

"China is recognized as one of the leading forces in taekwondo and some officials from the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) have described our progress in the past decade as model development," Zhao Lei, China's taekwondo chief, said.

Zhao, a respected taekwondo referee, has been appointed special assistant to the World Taekwondo Federation president during the Games. Zhao said his personal achievement owed a lot to the success of the sport here.

For instance, the Chinese women's taekwondo athletes have picked up at least one gold medal at each of the past two Olympics. Chen Zhong, 26 and 182 cm, is expected to retain her title and become the first woman to win consecutive golds in the heavyweight division. Young stars like 21-year-old Wu Jingyu, Zhu Guo, 22, and 24-year-old Liu Xiaobo are also favorites.

To increase their chances of success, the country's taekwondo stars have been treating every fight as if it was an Olympic Games bout. At national level competitions, athletes fight on "off-the-ground mats", similar to the ones that will be used come the big day. Also, many competitions have been held in large indoor stadiums so athletes get used to the "volume" of a real Olympic venue.

At the national championships last month organizers downsized the mats and referees were told to take a tougher stance against passive fighters, thereby encouraging an aggressive attitude.

"Pressure never gets to me," said Wu Jingyu, who is famous for her competitive spirit. "A lot of people are supporting me. I must do my best at the Olympics."

China is also leading the world in developing technical aspects of the sport. During the Asian Taekwondo Championships, to be held late April in Luoyang, Henan province, the organizers, in conjunction with the Asian Taekwondo Union, will introduce an electronic jacket system to reduce errors by judges.

China's emergence in the sport has sparked interest from some other countries, which now want their athletes to train with their Chinese counterparts, Zhao said.

Even so, the country's athletes need to improve their techniques if they want to avoid major injuries, Zhao said. As such, South Korean Lee Dae-sung, who helped his compatriots win three gold medals when taekwondo debuted at the Sydney Games in 2000, has been hired to help Chinese athletes.

"Under Lee's guidance, Chen Zhong has changed her footwork and I think it will benefit her future career," Zhao said.