Chinese Olympic hopeful Xu wins 2nd national rowing title

HANGZHOU, East China, April 6 (Xinhua) -- Xu Dongxiang, gold medalist at the 2006 World Rowing Championships, crowned her second title at the 2008 Spring China National Rowing Championships on Sunday, giving a strong boost to her morale in the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games.

Xu of Zhejiang won the lightweight women's single sculls in 7 minutes 52.08 seconds, just 0.3 seconds ahead of second finisher Chen Haixia of Guangdong. Yu Hua of Beijing finished third by covering the 2km course in 8 minutes 0.65 seconds. The three are all from China's national rowing team.

Xu, 25, won the 8km lightweight women's single sculls on Thursday, the first day of the 4-day competition held on the Thousand Island Lake in the suburb of Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province.

"My back ached, so I didn't have a good start today," Xu said, "Chen led me by as many as 5 meters in the first 1,500 meters."

"I'm becoming more and more mature with all the races. Now I can still keep cool-minded even when I'm left behind by others," she said.

Zhang Lin and Wu Chongjiu beat national teammates Tian Jun and Huang Zhongming to win the lightweight men's pair in 6 minutes 46.06 seconds. The four have clinched gold medals of the lightweight men's four at the world cup and world championships.

Zhang, a Liaoning native, said: "It's thrilling to see the progress we've made. There're always a lot of excellent rowers around me, and their presence motivates me to train hard for more national and world championships."

"Rowing looks beautiful for you outsiders, but the training is sometimes so tiring and boring that we want to cry out," he said.

Most of the more than 200 participating rowers, especially those hopeful to attend the 2008 Olympics, took the tournament more as a test of their winter training and further preparation for the Games.

"Our ultimate goal is to win medals at the Olympics in August,"s aid Tian, "we didn't change our daily training for the competition because we can not afford an adjustment at the cost of disturbing our preparation for the Olympics."

"We take it as part of our preparation for the Beijing Olympics," Tian added.

Chinese national rowing team members, including Zhang Liang and Tang Bin, also swept the other five titles -- men's and women's single sculls, ligh weight men's single sculls, men's and women's pair.

Jin Shengjun and Xue Feng of Jiangsu provincial team, gold medalists at the 2007 World Rowing Junior Championships, staged excellent performance by beating a rival from the national rowing team to the third place in the men's pair.