Exciting! Disappointment! track and field in Chinese national games

11th Chinese National Games (CNY) finally drew the curtains in Jinan. Most of the track and field results were quite normal, except for a few... There was no WRs from Ma's army or Li Xuemei's 10.79s in women's 100m. If you really want me to pick which result is the most suspicious, it could be the women's discus (although I don't think so). Li Yanfeng, from Heilongjiang province, threw a 66.40m to make no. 1 in the world this year. I would say Li is a consistent 60m++ thrower (for 9 straight seasons) and she already did 64m thrower a few years back. However, she was suffered from injuries for the last few years but she was still a finalist in Olympics last year. I still remembered in one media report about 2 years ago that she said she was so excited with the training camp in Germany although her injuries had not been cleared and she could not give up such good opportunities. Finally, her efforts paid off. She is now 30 years old and thrower normally has a very long career like Sadova, who I think is over 40 is still throwing. Nowadays, China seems to have a little more experience on prolonging athletes' career. Don't forget, World cup bronze medalist and mutiple WC and Olympic finalist, Song Aimin is at 31 and still going strong. Song threw 65.44m this time for 2nd place.

Disappointment... Wang Jing from Fujian province... I don't want to believe it. 11.50s, a very modest women's 100m winning time was caused by steroid. I can't believe it. She was the only B-qualifier in last year Olympics and she was only 20 years old by the time. A girl from Fujian province toppled the dominance from the tradional strong provinces like Jiangsu province was once a wonder girl and has been top 8 in the last 2 years together with Jiangsu's Jiang Lan, Qin Wangping and Chen Jue, and also Jiangxi's Tao Yujia. They all have different styles of techniques and although their times wander between 11.4 and 11.6, these at least reflect a more realistic picture in current women's sprinting in China. Wang was on 11.42s last year and 11.43 last month and she won the sprining queen in national games at 11.50s. Then she was pulled away by the official when she was doing her preparation a few minutes before women's 200m final. By then, no one knew why she was pulled out, even her team mate, Huang Jingju. The next day, her news broke out. Although I don't want to believe, this has become an irreversible truth. The reason I don't want to believe is because she was not running some stunning time like 10.9 or 10.6 and she barely won the event at 11.50...

Veterans still in the field
Li Shaojie and Liu Jing, also Li Rongxiang
Li Shaojie, at 34, won his 1st national games title in men's discus in 1993(!!) and competed 5 editions bagging 4 golds and 1 silver (1997) including this edition. He still holds NR at 65.16m
Liu Jing, at 32, won her 2nd consecutive national games titles in women's 100m hurdle to end her career at a full note. She was runner-up in 1997 at 12.76s and did not compete in 2001.
Li Rongxiang, at 37, won national games twice in 2001 and 2005 and held the national record at 84.29m and national junior record. all the young throwers in the field respect him a lot and address him "brother xiang". He finished 16th.

Excitment
28-year-old NR and 14-year-old AR of men's triple jump were broken on the last day of the competition. This time, 2 jumpers did the feat on the same occasion to beat the oldest NR in Chinese track and field. NR and AR stood at 17.34m and 17.35m, respectively. The original record holder, Zou Zhenxian set the old record in 1981 and since then, there have been so many attempts for the record but ended up in vain. Zou, himself, is also worried about this and started organizing "Zou Zhenxian Challenge" every year from 2000 and hoped the young jumpers one day can jump past his what they called "a record of old mustache". I think this really did something and there have been more than 5 17m-jumpers over the last 9 years including Sichuan's Gu Junjie, Shandong's Zhong Minwei, Hunan's Wu Bo, Zhejiang's Zhu Shujing, Hebei's Wu Ji, Li Yanxi and Cao Shuo. Finally, Li who has been very consistent for the last few years broke the dusty "spell" at 17.59m on his 4th attempt. Zhu Shujing, also trained with Li did 17.41m to surpass the old record. It appears to me a compensation for a long wait of the new record. I was impressed by Li since 2005 (2006?) when he jumped 17.15m outside China in Eugene (Reebok GP, I guess). In 2006 Asian Games in Doha, I followed the real time results and he only managed to overtake the leader on his last attempt, also an only 17m++ jump, to win the gold. In 2008 Olympics, he jumped 17.30m in the heats but only managed sub-17m jumps in the final. He went one step further in recent world champ. when he did 17.27m in heats and 17.23m in final to finish 6th. Finally, he did 17.59m.
The 2nd excitment is Gong Lijiao's 20.35m in women's shot put. Gong is coached by Li Meisu who is still the AR holder with 21.76m since 1988. Li only ended his career in 2001. Before Gong, Li has coached Li Meiju, the world indoor bronze medalist from last year who has been among the top throwers in the world. Gong's 20.35 is the only 20m++ from China since 1997. Last year was her breakout year when she finished 4th in Olympics and she stepped up to bronze in recent world championships. Both Li Yanxi and Gong Lijiao have traceable trails leading up to the results this time and I hope they can keep up with good work

Others: Zheng Xingjuan won women's high jump at 1.95m which has been the best result for the last 10 years. She has been the top jumper since 2006 and did not improve much over the years wandering 1.90-1.93m region. Zheng's next goal will be the NR at 1.97 set by Jin Ling, a record more than 20 years. Liu Xiang won 110m hurdle at 13.34, the 2nd race after his comeback and this has been his 3rd victory in national games since 2001. I want to downplay a little on Liu Xiang because I got really sick of how Chinese media heavily focuses on Liu. When I watched the National Games in CCTV5, they spent so much time spying on him a few hours before the race when he just did his stretching, jumping and putting on clothes or gloves and there was really nothing important to see. I think this kind of things will be getting more ridiculous once he starts racing more. I am not against Liu, honestly. I noticed him since 2000 world junior champ. when he finished 4th and 2001 National GP when he was 18 years old, beat Chen Yanhao (who is Asia no. 1 before Liu's rise) and broke the Asian junior record at 13.32. He also set 13.12 World junior record in Zurich the next year. He achieved so much but I think the hype is just too overwhelming in China and they can't cope it well. Especially when he pulled out from Olympics, all the negative comments surfaced regardless of the breakthroughs he had made for this event. Huang Xiaoxiao, two-time fifth placer in world champ. in women's 400m hurdle, unfortunately raced an hour before Liu and said after winning that today does not just belong to Liu Xiang but also all the finalists in women's 400m hurdle. Well-said.