Doha success does not guarantee Olympics glory, cautions Liu

Doha: China's huge haul of gold medals at the Asian Games was mission accomplished for their athletes, but no guarantee of success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, chef de mission Liu Peng said on Friday.

China have won 164 gold medals in the last big multi-sport event before they host the next Summer Games and could win a 165th in the men's basketball final, scheduled later yesterday.

"Despite the fact that China successfully fulfilled its set goal for the Doha Asian Games, we are well aware of our weaknesses when analysing our performance," Liu told a news conference.

China's gold-grabbing performance in the Qatari capital was no guarantee they would do the same in 2008, Liu said.

"Asian Games is different from the Olympics in terms of competition rules ... and competitors. In many sports, Asia is not in the leading position across the world.

"Even in some of Asia's strong sports, the top athletes did not participate.

"It is clear that we are facing more severe situation and harder tasks in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics in spite our our excellent results in Doha. We must redouble our efforts to meet the coming greater challenges."

The failure of the some of China's big names to win gold "rang alarms", said Liu, but he declined to talk about specific cases and was reluctant to put it down to the weight of expectation.