China wants to stage Games in year 2000

Press, 26 July 1984, Page 20

China wants to stage Games in year 2000

NZPA Los Angeles The People’s Republic of China hopes to be the host for the Olympic' Games in the year 2000, the assistant Olympic team manager, Lu Jindong, has told a press conference in Los Angeles. China has also applied to host the eleventh Asian Games in 1990. A decision on that venue will be made in September. Mr Lu said China supported the proposed rule change which would make any countries boycotting an Olympics for political reasons ineligible for the following Olympics, but said that no decision had been made yet on whether China would take part in the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea. He praised the 1.0. C. president, Juan Samaranch, for his efforts to stave off the boycott of Los Angeles

; by the Soviet Union and most other Eastern bloc E countries. t “Regretfully, he did not i succeed,” Mr Lu said. t In China, he said, the i newspapers did not refer to > it as a “boycott” — they just reported that those > countries were not taking i part. i Mr Lu said the 353-strong > Chinese delegation was “concerned about security - but not worried about securJ ity.” ; He said that threats i against the Chinese had 1 been received in Peking be- > fore the team left, but they 1 had discovered other teams i had received similar I threats. Asked if there had J been any threats in Los i Angeles, or any attempts to persuade Chinese athletes to defect, he replied there had , been “nothing.” E Some people were trying > to cause trouble, though, he

said. “I don’t know what they’re up to ... I don’t know what they’re trying to do.” A get-together with Taiwanese athletes had been planned here, he said, but it was cancelled because the Taiwanese had “reservations.” Mr Lu, who said his country had a sports budget of SNZ4OO million, said he would be “a very, very happy man” if China won 10 medals in Los Angeles. Sports had really taken off in China over the last five years, he said, and athletes who won gold medals in Los Angeles would return to scholarships. Mr Lu said that the Olympics had created great excitement in China because “It is the first time we have sent such a big delegation abroad since the formation of the new China.”