VANCOUVER - The Chinese national women's basketball team touched down in Canada on Sunday for three games, looking to turn around its fortunes after a disappointing start to a North American tour.

After a 100-62 loss to the World champion US Olympic team on Saturday in Seattle, following earlier losses to WNBA club teams Los Angeles and Seattle, Chinese coach Sun Fengwu said the team will spend its weeklong stay in the Vancouver area.

Having already qualified for this summer's London Olympic Games, 7th-ranked China will meet their Canadian counterparts in the first of three games in three nights starting Wednesday in Langley, a Vancouver suburb city.

The Canadians, currently ranked 11th in the world, are looking to qualify for their first Olympics since the 2000 Sydney Games and are using the Chinese friendlies as a tune-up. Starting June 25 in Turkey, the team will be among 12 nations battling it out in a qualifying tournament for the final five Olympic spots.

"For us, I think it (being in Canada) is a good opportunity to train our team, especially on defence," said Sun at a reception hosted by the Chinese Consul-General in Vancouver.

"We need to see improvements in defence, the physical game and scrambling for the ball. We are at a disadvantage in our bodyweight and height compared to the American and Canadian teams."

With Sun sitting the injured Miao Lijie and Chen Nan, two of his top players against the U.S., the young Chinese team struggled against the Olympic champions, shooting for just 42 percent and committing 22 turnovers. Veteran forward Ma Zengyu was one of the rare bright spots in hitting for 20 points to lead all scorers.

Unlike the Americans who fielded a team of professionals with just one college player, the Chinese squad is in transition and at the stage of replacing the old with the young.

At Olympics, China is in Group A with the United States who are looking for their fifth consecutive Olympic gold, Angola and three other teams to be decided.

"We expect the other three teams will be those who won the second place, third place and fourth place at the European championship (in Turkey). Our opponents will be very strong," said Sun.

"We are expecting to meet the team that won the second place in the European championship in our first game in the London Olympics. We will try our best at every game."

Following Canada, the Chinese team returns to the U.S. where they will play the Connecticut Sun on May 19 and New York Liberty on May 27, with scrimmages scheduled against other WNBA teams in between.

Sun, himself a three-time Olympian, added that Canada was a good opportunity for China to pick up its game in preparation for the intense scrutiny it will face as the Games approach.

"As far as pressure is concerned, we face pressure every time in competitive sports, especially for us as a national team. The Chinese people have very high expectations of us and we have high expectations for ourselves," he said.

"I think there is pressure every second and our pressure is more or less the same as what we faced in 2008 (in Beijing)."