Beijing: Former Olympic champion Liu Xiang has prepared a new start technique he hopes will help give him an edge ahead of his bid for a second 110 metres hurdles title at the Daegu world championships in South Korea.
The Chinese, who swept the title in Osaka in 2007, will leap the first hurdle after seven steps instead of his usual eight, a technique he hopes could shave at least five-hundredths of a second off his times.
"Compared to top athletes like [Olympic champion Dayron] Robles and [world number two David] Oliver, I still have to catch up," the 27-year-old said in comments published by Chinese media on Wednesday.
"So I hope I can master the technique and reduce my distance from them in the first half of the race."
Liu's gold at the 2004 Athens Games made him his country's first man to win an Olympic track title but he has struggled to reach his world-beating best since limping out of his title defence at the Beijing Games with an Achilles injury.
Liu marked a small step on his long road to redemption by winning his third straight Asian Games title at Guangzhou in November, but his time of 13.09 seconds was well below his best of 12.88, set at a grand prix meeting in Switzerland in 2007 and a world record at the time.
Cuban Robles owns the current world mark of 12.87, set months before taking Liu's Olympic title.
