Northern Ireland will host a team who expect to win at least six gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics when the Chinese gymnasts come to Lisburn next summer.

China’s top gymnasts are superstars in their own country and dominated the medals table at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

So it’s an amazing coup for Northern Ireland in general and Lisburn in particular that the team will base their pre-Olympic training camp at Salto National Gymnastics Centre.

The development has come about due to months of hard work involving Sport Northern Ireland, Chinese officials and the Salto club, in particular their Chinese-born coach Sun Jie.

A 30-strong party will stage a two-week training camp at Salto next June just ahead of the London Olympics.

Sports Minister Caral Ni Chuilin, in an announcement at Salto, yesterday confirmed that the Chinese team would indeed be coming to Northern Ireland. with the rest of the country’s competitors based in Leeds ahead of the Games.

“This is fantastic news,” said the Minister. “Having the best in the world train locally will raise the profile of the sport and the local facilities.”

The Minister praised the commitment of Sport NI and Tony Byrne, chief executive and high performance coach at Salto.

“There has been a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes for some time to promote venues to national teams across the world,” she said.

“Following the visit in July by the Chinese coaches Xiong Jingbin and Jin Weiguo, hopes have been high that the national committee would agree for the team to train here.

“The terrific facilities in Salto, the great relationships developed by Salto’s own coach Sun Jie and the partnership adopted by my Department, Lisburn City Council and Sport NI have resulted in the Chinese team’s decision to locate here.”

London 2012 chief Lord Coe last night hailed the efforts that will see China’s gymnasts use Salto as a base.

Olympic legend Lord Coe, 1500m gold medallist at the 1980 and ’84 Games, said: “Having visited Salto on a number of occasions over the years, I know the Chinese gymnasts will enjoy being based at one of the best gymnastics facilities in the UK.

“The team is also assured one of the warmest welcomes as they spend time in Lisburn.”

And Lord Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, added: “Congratulations to the sports administrators in Northern Ireland for hosting another team before competition begins at the 2012 Games.”

The Irish Paralympic team and the Australian boxing team are already committed to staging their pre-Games camps in Northern Ireland. Sport NI chief executive Dominic Walsh is confident more teams will follow their example.

He said: “Announcing China will give further assurance to teams that Northern Ireland is a terrific place to train and prepare.”