The Japan women's wrestling team began its six-day training camp Wednesday with the goal of bettering its impressive medal haul from Athens last summer.

Japan won two golds, one silver and a bronze in Athens, and under new head coach Kazuhito Sakae, expects to do even better in Beijing in 2008.

``Our goal for the next Olympics is to clinch three gold medals at least,'' Sakae said after Wednesday's training session. ``I hope Japan will be regarded as the No. 1 nation in the world when it comes to women's wrestling.

``Our objective at this training camp is to adjust to revised rules, which started this year.''

World governing body FILA has adopted a new rule that requires grapplers to fight more aggressively, including switching to a three two-minute period format from the old two three-minute period.

Before training Wednesday, two assistant coaches explained the new rules and reported their observations of a recent European competition that ran under the new rules.

About 30 wrestlers attended camp Wednesday, including 63-kilogram class gold medalist Kaori Icho, who said she is a bit worried about the new rules, but is still confident.

``I'm going to study how to cope with the new rules from now on,'' Icho said. ``I have shown that I am a strong grappler, and I will continue to be strong under the new rules.''

Her older sister, Chiharu, the Athens silver medalist in the 48kg class, said she has no problem with the new rules.

``It's a disadvantage for the slow starters,'' Chiharu said. ``But it will be an advantage to me.''(IHT/Asahi: February 17,2005)