Kuala Lumpur, May 20: Denmark may have lost tamely to China in the Uber Cup final today, but their coach Kenneth Larsen believes Camilla Martin and company are still winners.

Larsen said it was obvious that China would easily walk past any team which would have played them in the final.

"Even if the Chinese had fielded a second team they would have walked away with the title," he said.

He added that it was the first time in  40 years they have reached a final and he was happy and proud with the way his players performed.

"I thought Camilla Martin played a good match. But technically the Chinese players are superior. We have to take this into account. We must fashion our players to play technically to close the gap on the Chinese women."

"They are all young. They are in fulltime training and have the time to improve on their technical ability, while we cannot buy time to train in this field," Larsen said.

He added that beating Indonesia, South Korea, Japan and Malaysia itself is a big achievement.

He added that Denmark has to work really hard to find some ways to close the gap on the Chinese.

In this respect, Larsen said they have formed a back-up squad of very young players under the national programme.

Chinese coach Li Yongbo had expected the victory - for China to thrash Denmark 3-0 in the final.

He had even expected Gong Zhichao to beat world No. 1 Camilla Martin.

"Gong (Zhichao) had beaten Camilla three times before, the last being at the World Grand Prix Finals in Brunei last year. This gave Gong the psychological advantage," Yongbo said.

However, he believes that Camilla and Zhichao are on the same level.

"Zhichao's win over Camilla gave the other players a big boost in confidence. That's why Ge Fei-Gu Jun and Dai Yun were able to win their matches very easily. I did not expect us to finish Denmark in 84 minutes," said Yongbo.

Yongbo picked Japan, South Korea and Indonesia as the teams to watch in the future.

"They have a lot of potential," he said.

On China's chance in the forthcoming Sydney Olympcs, Yongbo said:"I've no comment as this is four months away, but we'll try our best to achieve something."

The Chinese coach also said that although the proposed seven points, best of five matches system will not affect the Chinese team much, China won't agree to the system as it is a 180-degree change.

"Current badminton fans are used to the 15 points system and they may not be able to accept the changes," he said.