Around this time of the year, China's national skeleton team usually enter their summer training season after a recess period and starts preparing for the upcoming season.

However, due to the pandemic this year, the team hasn't gotten a chance for a recess and has been training for over 365 days. Every team member wants to seize the opportunity to catch up with top-level foreign racers.

"Most of foreign sliders couldn't get their normal training going, but we are able to train with normal tempo backed by strong support. This is a good chance for us to catch up and even outrun our competitors," said Sun Fan, leader of China's national skeleton training team.

The goal of 2020 for China's skeleton team is to select core players based on their performance over the past season. Some have already been decided and some will make a full list in the upcoming summer training period.

"This is the first phase of the summer training and the training is mainly about building muscle stamina. So the workload is huge and every day my muscle reacts accordingly as well," said 24-year-old Chinese skeleton racer Yin Zheng, who transitioned to the sport two years ago and claimed the 9th place in the Men's World Cup in Sigulada in 2020.

On the women's team, 22-year-old Lin Huiyang who made the best-ever result for China's female team at the World Championships at the 2019-2020 season, said: "I can feel my body become more solid and I am building my muscle. It is the important time to lay the foundations as the past season has just wrapped up."

For many team members, gaining weight has become the goal for their training as weight constitutes an important part in the sport. It is no easy task to ensure that while weight is gained, the starting speed and physical fitness won't be affected. It is going to be a team effort by the athlete, the coaching team as well as nutritionists.

Besides gaining weight, many Chinese sliders look forward to honing their skills of working with the sled.

Geng is targeting his running start with pushing the sled while Lin is placing emphasis on her sled steering techniques.