BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- China's equestrian team gives priority to preparations for the 2020 Olympic Games, said a senior official of the Chinese equestrian association here on Saturday.
"The prior mission of our equestrian team is to be well-prepared for Tokyo Olympics and try hard to qualify for the Olympic team competition," Zhong Guowei, general secretary of the Chinese equestrian association, said in an interview after he attended the opening ceremony of 2018 EQUULEUS Open, an FEI CSI3 show jumping event slated on Sept. 21-23.
According to Zhong, the Chinese equestrian team's performance at the just concluded Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia was not satisfying though Alex Hua Tian won a bronze medal in the individual eventing event.
"The result of team event was not ideal," Zhong said, "However, we can learn some lessons from the Asian Games and to make overall preparations for the Tokyo Olympic Games. We invited experts to join our team discussing and analyzing the past competitions, hoping to make better preparations for Tokyo."
Also, the Chinese equestrian team has been reaching out to cooperate with the counterparts of Germany and New Zealand as well as placing their eventing and show jumping training bases in Germany and Belgium.
"Nearly all our team members now stay in these two countries to prepare for the Olympic qualifications. One thing worthy of being mentioned is that Australia and New Zealand have won the qualification for the final, meaning there are two less strong competitors in next August's qualifications," Zhong said.
"China's equestrian team has lot of things to improve on international stage, like the Olympic Games, World Equestrian Games and so on. Team competition is our weakness," Zhong said. "As for this, our riders are trying their best to compete in all levels of the international competitions, from 1-star to 2-star, then 3-star, step by step."
In the past Olympic Games, China had only Alex Hua Tian to have earned equestrian Olympic berths in two occasions, Beijing 2008 and Rio 2016, both in eventing individual event.
