2017 will be a season different from that of China, with the 2016 Chinese team at the “pit lane”.

The male stars of the team coached by Sandro Damilano, for one reason or another, are still in the box.

- Cai Zelin, silver in Rio de Janeiro, has just married. At the moment, he trains occasionally in his city Kunkming, and his main goal should be that of the Chinese Games at the end of the season

- Wang Zhen after six months of stop for a serious lung inflammation had returned in training at Saluzzo. Back to China to compete in Taicang, he had to stop again for the flare-up of the lung problem. His 2017 season is probably over.

Of the female stars who trained in Italy in 2016, we had already said that Qieyang Shenjie, immediately after the arrival in Saluzzo, had been certain of her pregnancy and returned to China.

A separate chapter concerns  Liu Hong who had already decided to take a sabbatical year to finish the Beijing University of Sports.

By the end of 2016 she had been chosen for advertising in the Vogue magazine in China by a famous Italian fashion house.

She, too, could not resist the desire to make a more meaningful sense of her recent marriage (end of 2015), using this 2017 to become mother: for both the sweet wait should end at the end of the year.

So China’s Women Team for the World Championships in London will target on the three first athletes in Taicang and Huangshan

- Lu Xiuzhi (personal best of 1:25.12 - Huangshan 2017 in 1:26:28 - Taicang 2017 in 1:31:01)

- Na Wang (personal best of 1:26:29 obtained in Huangshan on March 4, 2017 - Taicang 2017 in 1:31:09)

- Yang Jiayu (personal best of 1:26:35 obtained in Huangshan on March 4, 2017 - Taicang 2017 in 1:31:04)

In men for now, they are certain in 20km

- Wang Kaihua, who won Huangshan in 1:17:54 and is currently the world's season leader

- and the young Wang Rui who arrived third at Huangshan in 1:19:23 but had been the winner (out of score) in Taicang in the IAAF Challenge in front of Caio Bonfim.

In 50km certain are

- Yu Wei (5th in Rio de Janeiro, and personal best of 3:42:54 obtained in Huangshan on March 6, 2016) and

- Liu Wenbin, winner in Huangshan 2017, (3:46:12).

The third athlete in both events will be chosen by technical decision in July.