The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Beijing

China is on the brink of becoming the most dominant sporting power in the world, with expectations running high that they will bounce the United States from the top of the Olympic medal table.

Publicly, China's leadership have played down the country's sporting ambitions and Cui Dalin, deputy chief of China's Olympic team, insists the team has no official medal target.

But he said he hoped all athletes would perform to their highest level when the Games get underway on Saturday.

"We have never set a medal target. But we have made very serious preparations and all athletes have undergone very hard training," he said.

"It is safe to say that we have made progress with regard to previous performances."

In reality, China's athletes are under extreme pressure to perform well.

At a ceremony to unveil the team, basketball star Yao Ming, reigning 110m Olympic hurdle champion Liu Xiang and dozens of others vowed in unison to do the nation of 1.3 billion people proud.

"For the glory of the motherland, I will, during the Beijing Olympics, doggedly struggle, summon all courage and energy to be first, compete with fairness and friendship, win without pride, and lose without losing spirit," they said.

"We will achieve the twin goals of athletic success and civilised spirit, make a good showing for the nation's people and win honour for the motherland."

At Athens four years ago, China finished with 32 gold, 17 silver and 14 bronze medals to place second behind the United States.

In the drive to beat that mark and satisfy nationalist pride, they are fielding 639 athletes in Beijing-up from the 407 it sent to Greece.

While it has a realistic chance of achieving the feat, it is not likely to make waves in blue riband events such as athletics and swimming.

Rather, its hopes lie in scooping golds from sports where it is traditionally strong-table tennis, badminton, gymnastics and diving.

It will also be aiming to add to the tally in lower profile disciplines such as canoeing, boxing, beach volleyball and synchronized swimming.

In athletics, only Liu and London marathon winner Zhou Chunxiu have a realistic chance of seeing the Chinese flag hoisted in honour of a gold medal, with Zhang Wenxiu an outside chance in the women's hammer throw.

With China's dismal showing at the National Swimming Championships this year, where just two Asian records were broken, few of the 32 golds up for grabs in the pool are expected to end up in their hands.

The United States and Australia are set to dominate once again, with Chinese hopes hanging on Wu Peng, who claimed silver in the 200m butterfly at last year's world championships.

Where China will almost certainly chalk up success is through its paddlers and shuttlers.

It is the dominant table tennis nation and with the likes of men's world numbers one and two, Wang Hao and Ma Lin, in action, and top-ranked Zhang Yining and Guo Yue on the women's side, a medal frenzy is almost guaranteed.

Golden couple Lin Dan and Xie Xingfang carry Chinese hopes on the badminton courts, while the diving team is aiming to top their six golds from nine medals at Athens.

"Pressure can be both positive or detrimental to my game. Olympic gold is the goal that I am pursuing in Beijing," said Lin this week.

A sport that China could surprise in is boxing. At the 2006 Asian Games they shocked world heavyweights Kazakhstan and Thailand by bagging two gold medals through Zou Shiming (light flyweight) and Hu Qing (lightweight).

China could get off to a flyer by winning the first gold medal of the Games, with sharpshooter Du Li favourite in the 10m Air Rifle.

Li faces a close race with her country's weightlifters to give China the roaring start they want in their bid to surpass the United States.