(Beijing, October 11) With the opening of the 2007 International Badminton Invitational Tournament, the Chinese national badminton team's Olympic preparation has actually entered the substantive stage, said Li Yongbo, chief coach of the team, at a press conference in Beijing this afternoon.

"During this period we will try to get as many Olympic berths as possible," Li talked frankly about the goal of the national team in the coming months. According to the BWF's rules and regulations, before the completion of the Olympic ranking points tournaments on April 30 next year, if an NOC has three or more of the world top four in an individual event, then it will get three Olympic berths for that event. That is to say, an NOC can only send three players (pairs) at most for an individual event.

Judging by the latest world rankings released by the BWF, China takes three of the top four places in the men's singles, women's singles and women's doubles, two in the mixed doubles, but only one in the men's doubles. Despite of the encouraging results, Li said his team was still faced with four major difficult problems in its preparation for the Olympic Games.

"In the first place," Li said, "the Olympic Games are different from other competitions, all teams attach great importance to it, resulting in the increase of our arch rivals. In the second place, the 2008 Olympics are to be held in Beijing. All of our players are so eager to participate in it that they may get nurvous under stressful conditions and get injured, which will in turn affect the following systematic training." 

"The 21-point system certainly makes the competition more unpredictable," Li continued. "It can be said that the system gets all the teams to the same starting point, and we our coaches and players are trying to find out experience through training and competition. Due to the way of qualification for the Beijing Olympics, our players have to replace training with competitions, which in a way upsets their normal training rhythm and eventually may affect their competitions or even result in injuries."

With 22 Olympic ranking-points tournaments left within less than one year, Li said the coaches and players on his team would try their very best. "The Beijing Olympic Games are the most important competition in my life. If possible, I would exchange all the gold medals we have won for those of the Beijing Games. However, I do hope that fans and the media will not put too much pressure on us. After all, we are not as strong as our diving and table tennis teams which boast overwhelming superiorities over the rest of the world."