Yang Liwei on the lengthy training camp

After China women's basketball team qualifying for the FIBA Women's World Cup, Yang Liwei, a pivotal guard, commented “I don’t think long periods of centralized training are the best option. We do need time together to build chemistry, but we also need to return to our normal lives. We need more time to refine our individual skills first, then work on the team as a unit, and finally use high-level matches to test what we’ve been training. That is a healthy process, rather than keeping ourselves in a closed, isolated environment all the time. I think staying in that kind of state for too long weakens initiative and also takes away the sense of hunger.” The team has been training for the tournament since early January.