SIX Chinese coaches arrived in the island on Saturday night for the start of the government to government scholarships offered to China by the Jamaican Government.

The six represent a portion of the 10 scholarships which were offered. The other four, who will arrive in September, will be full-time students at the GC Foster College and will focus on sprinting.

The group leader Anli Wang said that he hopes this would be the start of a long-term scholarship and exchange programme between the two countries. He also said that they were excited to learn all that we know about sprinting.

The six coaches are Hongtao Chen, Yan Juntao, Yingbo Zhang, Hiu Yang, Anli Wang and Li Xiumei who is the lone female in the group.

All the members of the group expressed the desire to meet Usain Bolt. They remember him well from his record-breaking form in that country at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

According to Edward Shakes, principal of GC Foster College, Jamaica’s technical director and lecturer at the college Maurice Wilson will be in charge of the one-month programme that will be presented to the coaches. They will focus on the sprints.

He said also that the coaches will attend the upcoming national senior trials to get first hand experience of what the event is like.