WUHAN, Central China -- The Chinese City Games is regarded as a platform both for athletes to turn from nobody to somebody, and for coaches to scout hopefuls. However, the ongoing 6th edition of the Games mirrors China's poor backup in women's basketball.

The previous City Games churned out many super stars like Olympic champions Deng Yaping in table tennis, Li Xiaoshuang in gymnastics and Wang Junxia in long distance running. But in women's basketball, few star buds were discovered this time.

Eleven teams competed from October 20 to 28, but the semifinalists remained the same with last edition, including title holder Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenyang and Harbin.

Gong Luming, former head coach of Chinese women's basketball team, said: "The above cities are still the strongest in China."

"On the whole level in the competition, I think they played OK but few hopefuls are discovered this time," he added. "They should have been physically stronger and strengthen their footwork."

Actually, many of the teenage girls have good physique. The Guangzhou team has three centers over 195cm tall. But their basic skills are far from satisfactory. For example, more than ten palmings took place in several matches.

Even Wei Wei, 207cm tall and dubbed "female Yao Ming", and Guan Xin, former member of Chinese National team, were also not in their form.

Wei, representing Guangzhou, never appeared in the starting lineup during the whole tourney.

"Wei should have become a leading player in national team but she is still too weak in strength and not forceful in the paint," Gong said.

Zheng Wei, coach of Guangzhou team, said: "We have noticed their problems and try to improve that. As for next year's Olympics, I think most of them will miss that since they are not good enough."

Another reason for China's poor backup in women's basketball is most teams pay much more attention to athletes' height so as to seek quick success.

"This makes it unbalanced between centers and players in other positions," said Zheng: "Thus many good players are overlooked."

"Women's basketball is not popular in China. Compared with men's basketball, we don't have many fans and sponsors. All this makes it hard for us to select players."

Another fact should not be ignored. Ever since the Chinese women's basketball team became the runners-up in 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, they only came 9th in the following two Games. The situation became worse when they didn't qualify for the Athens Games.

"Those bad results make some young talents dare not take up the sport because they can not see any hopes," added Zheng.

In 1995, China inaugurated its men's professional basketball league CBA. And in late 2001 WCBA took its first step in order to catch up with men's basketball.

However, WCBA's market didn't work well. In 2004, Jiangsu team's sponsor Suning Global Group gave up their cooperation because they didn't see any profit.

As Wang Du, deputy chief of Basketball Administration Center under China's State General Administration of Sport, pointed out earlier: "WCBA needs more than four or five years to make both ends meet."