China women's basketball team celebrate qualifying for the Tokyo Olympic Games, with a 64-62 victory over Spain during the Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Belgrade, Serbia, February 8, 2020. /VCG
Xu Limin, head coach of Chinese women's basketball team, said his team is mentally stronger in preparation for the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
"We have stayed together for two months, working on improving our weakness, especially some fundamentals," Xu said on Friday. "We trained six hours per day, sometimes we held scrimmages, or invited the men's team of Beijing Sports University to play training matches with us."
The team returned to China in early March after they had qualified for the Tokyo Olympics. The squad trained in isolation at Beijing Sport University instead of their familiar training base at the General Administration of Sport.
Xu Limin, head coach of Chinese women's basketball team, speaks during a public lecture in Beijing, China, January 8, 2020. /VCG
The 54-year-old revealed that they had even held reading parties and calligraphy competitions to help the players grow stronger mentally. According to Xu, he and his team are looking forward to playing at the Olympics next summer, when they will be physically and mentally stronger.
Looking back on his team's Olympic qualification journey, where they had to play 'home' games in the Serbian capital of Belgrade rather than on their usual home court in Foshan, south China's Guangdong Province, Xu said: "The coronavirus outbreak changed everything. At that time, the team was very young and under huge pressure; however, we managed to find a way to turn disadvantages into advantages, so the whole qualification journey had a special meaning for us."