Tokyo tune-ups keep China s Olympians on track for glory By SHI FUTIAN | China Daily | Updated: 2021-04-28 09:54 Share CLOSE Members of the Team China women s volleyball squad wait to be tested for COVID-19 upon their arrival at Narita International Airport in Tokyo on Sunday. The reigning Olympic champion will this week play Japan in an Olympic test event. THE ASAHI SHIMBUN/GETTY IMAGES
Prep focused on domestic events amid ongoing pandemic difficulties
With the Tokyo Olympics just three months away, most of Team China s athletes remain unable to gauge their preparations at international events as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage across the globe.
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Source: China State Council Information Office
Despite uncertainties cast by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese athletes are going all out on the home stretch of their preparations for the delayed Tokyo Olympics as the countdown to the Games hit the 100-day mark on Wednesday.
With Team China’s hard-fought victory to seal a spot in the women’s soccer tournament providing a timely morale boost this week, Chinese athletes are intensifying their training as they bid to do their country proud at the world’s biggest sports extravaganza, which is scheduled to open on July 23.
Ahead of a June 29 entry deadline, China has so far earned 255 qualification spots in 180 events across 23 sports for the Games, according to the Chinese Olympic Committee.
But three years later, Schultz is a Canadian track-and-field luminary no more.
At a moment of bitter tensions between the two countries, she has taken on Chinese citizenship and hopes to compete for her adopted country in this year’s Tokyo Olympics.
The reasons, Schultz has said, are deeply personal and seem to predate the current turmoil in China-Canada relations. Still, some critics of the regime in Beijing question her choice.
Her maternal grandmother in China once held the high jump world record but could never compete for that nation in the Olympics because it was boycotting the Games at the time. Her grandfather was a Chinese record holder in the high jump. The granddaughter expressed a wish as long ago as 2017 to achieve what her mother’s mother could not.
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