As inline skating grows at a great rate in East Europe, so it does in the Asian region where in the last few years the greatest boom of our discipline has been seen. First it was Chinese Taipei that surprised us in 1997, where Worlds was held in Mar del Plata (Argentina), next it was the turn of South Korea where skating acquired a great character with thousands of fans and the contribution of big companies took the Korean skating to the top of the world as they showed last year in Cali but now the turn to take off seems to have arrived at the surprising and promising China.

In a moment where the sport is a total boom in the whole country with the amazing Olympic Games in Beijing, the inline skating also wins favour and aspires to be into brought into Olympic family in a near future.

This year, the Chinese Roller Skating Association (CRSA) engaged the popular French coach, Christophe Audoire as their new national coach with the firm objective to teach the tactics and strategies to the big group of athletes who have a huge potential to excel.

Just to have an idea of the dimension of our sport in China, at their latest national championship more than 1300 athletes attended and the number of fitness skaters around the country is counted in the millions.

Unlike other years, in 2006, the China Team composed of 16 athletes, a new record for them, and they will be coordinated by the French coach during their time in the Spanish city of Gijon.

With more experience and after they were able to produce the World Championships at home three years ago, Chinese skating has been ready to conquer the world and the objectives are focusing on achieving podium status for the first time in Gijon 2008.

Dan Guo and Yinglu Zan are the most experienced skaters into the Chinese Team and they already demonstrated in junior category an excellent level very close to podium positions. Now, in senior category they will go to fight for a place into the world-wide elite.

In junior category, the team is powerful and promises a lot. There is only a few weeks left till they expose the Chinese mystery.