(Beijing, September 22) China's Ji Jianhua quitted halfway in today's men's event of the 2007 International Mountain Bike Invitational Competition. In a post-race interview with the media he explained that he quitted because of a bad stomachache in the fourth lap. Not long ago, he had won the Asian Championship and the only ticket to represent China in the 2008 Olympic Games.

Zhang Haitao and Duan Zhiqiang, Ji's teammates on the national team, had to bow out for being overtaken for a lap by the leading riders in the sixth and seventh lap respectively. Commenting on this, Ji Jianhua said, "Mountain bike has a longer history in Europe and we still have much to learn to catch up with them. The course here is very good except there are too many upslopes. The main reason for our failure is that we lag far behind those European cyclists."

"I learnt a lot from this race," said Ji. "Though I've been training for six years, I still have much to learn and improve, compared with the world top riders. I'm very happy to race with them today on this Olympic course."

Next year Ji Jianhua will have some training in Europe. "Hope I can make notable progress in the coming months," he said.