CHANGCHUN, Jilin province - China has picked a 43-strong delegation for this month's initial Youth Winter Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria.

Xiao Tian, vice-minister of the State General Administration of Sports, will head the Chinese delegation, including 23 athletes averaged 15.7 years old.

The oldest is the 17-year-old ice hockey player Sun Jiayue, and the youngest is Lv Xiucheng of short track speedskating, who's just turned 14 years old.

Among the 23 athletes, only ten have competed on world stage. There're men's singles figure skater Yan Han who finished the juniors' second place in 2010-2011 ISU Grand Prix Finals, and his counterpart of the women's Li Zijun, twice runner-up in ISU Grand Prix junior competitions.

Yu Xiaoyu/Jin Yang have been crowned at a Grand Prix as the junior pairs figure skating winners, and speed skater Yang Fan was the title holder of the men's 3,000m and team pursuit at the 2011-2012 world youth championships.

"Rather than winning medals, the Chinese delegation will focus more on promoting friendships and communications between us and others from all over the world," said Xiao.

The Youth Winter Olympic Games are open to junior athletes between 14-18 years old, featuring 63 events of 15 disciplines in seven sports, namely skating, skiing, biathlon, luge, bobsled, curling and ice hockey.

Over 1,000 athletes from more than 60 countries and regions are expected to take part in the January 13-22 Games.