Chinese men's curling team wins their Asiad opener

The Chinese men's curling team overcame Kazakhstan 12-1, winning their first match with ease at the Sapporo Winter Asian Games here on Saturday.

China, silver medalist in the Pacific-Asia Championships in 2016, took the lead since the first end and enlarged it to 9-0 in the fifth. Kazakhstan earned one point in the sixth before losing it 12-1.

"We are very proud and excited to be the first team competing at the Sapporo Asiad in our whole delegation," said Chinese first Zang Jialiang. "We had some pressure for sure, but when the competition began, we just became totally focused."

"We've been trained together for five years, and we knew each other quite well. Our aim here is trying our best in every match and I hope the best result will come eventually," said the Chinese skipper Liu Rui, the fourth winner in the Sochi Olympics in 2014.

"We established the curling team in 2003 and began to compete in Asia region in 2007. We don't have our own venue in our country, so the team took every chance to practice and improve during every competition," said Victor G. Kim, the chief coach and also skipper of Kazakhstan.

In the morning's other matches, host Japan beat Chinese Taipei 11-3, and South Korea outclassed Qatar 20-0. Endit