China forges ahead in Winter Olympic sports(2)

China's Winter Olympic medals by Games:

Games Gold Silver Bronze Total Rank

Lake Placid 1980 0 0 0 0 -

Sarajevo 1984 0 0 0 0 -

Calgary 1988 0 0 0 0 -

Albertville 1992 0 3 0 3 15

Lillehammer 1994 0 1 2 3 19

Nagano 1998 0 6 2 8 16

Salt Lake City 2002 2 2 4 8 13

Turin 2006 2 4 5 11 14

Vancouver 2010 5 2 4 11 7

Sochi 2014 3 4 2 9 12

The table shows that China's tour of Winter Olympics can be divided into three stages:

Empty-handed: from Lake Placid 1980 to Calgary 1988

Medals without gold: from Albertville 1992 to Nagano 1998

Medals with full colors: from Salt Lake City 2002 to Sochi 2014

Ace short track speed skater Wang Meng was forced out of the Sochi 2014 due to foot injury just before the Games, which had an impact on the Chinese team.

In Calgary 1988, Li Yan captured the women's 1,000m gold in the short track speed skating which was then a demonstration event.

China's Winter Olympic medals by sport:

Sport Gold Silver Bronze Total

Short track speed skating 9 13 8 30

Freestyle skiing 1 4 3 8

Speed skating 1 3 3 7

Figure skating 1 2 4 7

Curling 0 0 1 1

Total 12 22 19 53

The statistics show that China's Winter Olympic medals come from only five sports, golds from four.

Imbalance is apparent in China's winter sport development - ice sports are much stronger than snow. Eleven of the 12 golds and 45 of the 53 total medals came from ice competitions.

The richest medal mine is the short track speed skating which has contributed 30 of the total medals and nine of the 12 golds. And the nine short track golds were all won by women.

As 10.5 of the 12 gold medals were won by women, the gender imbalance in the winter sport development is also in the spotlight.

It is worth mentioning that in Nagano 1998, the Chinese women's ice hockey team made its debut in Winter Olympics. They crushed hosts Japan 6-1 and beat Sweden 3-1 in the group stage, before eventually losing to Finland 4-1 in the bronze medal match.

In Vancouver 2010, the Chinese women's curling team debuted in Winter Olympics and took the bronze.

All in all, China is strong in some ice events and women's events, which need to be consolidated. Meanwhile, China needs to invest more in snow events and men's events.