I think it was her goal to play the OG 2008 for a Gold medal and then retire? At this pace, I don't think she'll even be able to win a medal next year. Age is perhaps catching up to ZN. Perhaps LYB should focus more on Zhu Lin and Lu Lan. Any opinions on this?
If Zhu Lin, Lu Lan, even Xie Xingfang, can maintain top performance, why not? But as evidenced in the just concluded WC, Xingfang lost badly and is probably not yet ready to be "team leader" of the WS squad. Surprising as she is now 27. ZN may have lost to Wang Chen, but at least she did make the semis. About the only tournament I remember that she didn't do well was the Asian Games.
who is 27 now??? XXF??? i thought she's onli 25 now... ZN still hav alot left in her pocket... I dun think age is a problem 4 her... At least not at this moment...
She won't be able to win a medal ? Have you seen her current form ? she's able to beat everybody in the world. She's been number one in world ranking since several months, She has been more consistent than anyone else in her team .. Of course Zhang Ning can win a medal !
I really hope zhang ning can retain another go medal in OG 2008 that will be history, she really had motivated me alot after OG 2004 where she beat mia audina when 10 yrs ago mia beat zhang ning. & 10 yrs later she beat her back zhang ning jia you i hope u can do it all the best...
i think if she prepare well and time her peak form on a particular tournament, she would be hard to beat by all current WS players.
Then I think China might lose the gold for WS as Tine Rasmussen is unbeatable til now... Zhang Ning will not be strong as prior years anymore.. hopefully Xie Xingfang will be on her top form The chance for other countries to win is quite big..must consider many dark horses: Jun Jae-youn, Hwang Hye-youn, Yip Pui Yin, Wang Chen, Pi Hongyan, Wong Mew Choo, etc... So far Zhang Ning's performance is not really good.lost to these dark horses. LYB taking a high risk..
OG is still 4.5 months away, peaking now means nothing. Actually, peaking now, only make yourself to be the target, and let the opponents spend extra effort to "study" you. ZN's problem is the age and injury. With all the SS going on, she never recover from her injury and fatigue. However, after the OG qualification and UC, there's not much events going on. With the extra rest, ZN can be deadly again, with her experience. Also, the problem is, if LYB does not select ZN, who he going to use? Lu Lan and Zhu Lin are not obvious better choices. XXF is far from a reliable leader. Therefore, ZN's presence can be useful, or at least, helping to clean up the road for her teammates. Sure, ZN can be beatn by 1 of the "dark horse", but mostly, ZN won't go down, until she kicked out most of the "horses" 1st.
she could.....thats why she will compete at Romania ( US$ 5000) and also Polish Open...she will play nonstop to get into top 16.........
I heard she is applying for HK citizenship....she and Yip will compete for one spot beside wang Chen....
YES.............thats what I heard from HKG players back in February..not sure if she can qualify yet for Olympics though...
This year the Chinese ladies looks shaky. It will be interesting to see the draw and see who have the upperhand.
Tine would be the favourite and she can win because she will be assisted indirectly by the non-CHN dark horses you mentioned.They can only get better and even if they cannot take out CHN WS, they would have done enough to drain CHN WS so that when they meet Tine, they will be quite spent. It'll be a miracle if ZN can go far in OG08.Some movement recovery problems are pretty obvious now and the non-CHN dark horses do have the skills to execute the tactics that capitalise on her physical weaknesses which are likely to deteriorate with time. off-topic,if I were HKG, I would field Yippy over ZM for 3 reasons: 1. Yippy is still improving and can be a surprise package;she's unlikely to win the title but then it's hard to tell how far she can go.I like her fearless attitude and that she shows no respect for her opponents. 2. ZM can do more damage to non-CHN WS than to CHN WS.I believe none of the ex-CHN WS will do well because they showed much uneasiness playing in front of the 'homeland' crowd last CO07. 3. Yippy is young and should have priority in getting her first Olympic exposure as an experience platform for her future Olympic participation.She represents HKG's WS future, does ZM? Unless there is clear, consistent evidence of ZM's superior results relative to Yippy in the run-up to OG08,it makes long term sense to field Yippy, assuming she qualifies.(Having said that, I do like ZM, so it's quite sad)