Gymnastics - El-Zeiny shoulders Africa's hopes in Beijing

السبت، 02 أغسطس 2008 - 21:49

كتب : وكالات

El-Zeiny

BEIJING, (Xinhua) -- Egyptian gymnast Sherine El-Zeiny vowed on Saturday to enjoy her first Olympic experience in Beijing and strived to do her best.

The 17-year-old girl got a wild card to the Beijing Olympics at the 2007 World Championships in Stuttgart with a comparatively remarkable performance.

"I will do my best in the Beijing Olympic Games and enjoy it as it is the biggest sports event in the world. I believe it will be great," said El-Zeiny on Saturday.

El-Zeiny flew to Beijing on Thursday evening after a two-week training in Kunming, capital of the Chinese southwestern province Yunan.

She hurried to the hall of the National Indoor Stadium to kick off her training of the first day on Friday.

The new Olympian is the sole African women competitor in the Beijing Olympics artistic gymnastics event.

"Being the only one from Africa is very exciting. It motivates me as I would like to make people from Egypt and Africa proud," said she.

El-Zeiny takes "U.S. all-around queen" Shawn Johnson as her idol, but she also likes Chinese gymnastic girls every much, especially world vault champion Cheng Fei.

"The Chinese women's team is very strong and all of them have their own speciality events. I think China will definitely go to the top two in the team competition," said El-Zeiny.

The Egyptian gymnastics team coach is Wu Fei from China. Wu used to teach in China's Yunan province.

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