BEIJING, April 27: China can emerge from the Beijing Olympics as the dominant world sporting power, although it is unlikely to make waves in blue riband events such as athletics and swimming.

Rather, its hopes of upstaging the United States and topping the medals table 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.

At Athens four years ago, China finished with 32 gold, 17 silver and 14 bronze medals to end second behind America.

In the drive to beat that mark and satisfy nationalist pride, the host nation is expected to field almost 600 athletes in August — up from the 407 it sent to Greece.

Despite the boost in competitors, Deputy Sports Minister Cui Dalin has been keen to play down expectations of a medals avalanche.

“This is the first Olympics where our athletes are competing at home and they face a whole new competition environment and a whole series of difficulties never encountered before,” he told state media this month.

“The gap between the Chinese competitors’ performances in swimming and athletics and those for foreign competitors is vast,” he said.

Cui is right about athletics and swimming. Only defending 110m hurdles champion Liu Xiang and London marathon winner Zhou Chunxiu have a realistic chance of seeing the Chinese flag hoisted in honour of a gold medal.

Apart from them, Zhang Wenxiu is seen an outside chance in the women’s hammer throw after taking bronze at the world athletics championships in Japan last year.

For hurdler Liu, the first Chinese man to secure an Olympic athletics gold when he won in Athens, the pressure couldn’t be greater.

Not only is he expected to win, but his hundreds of millions of fans will be looking for him to break his own world record.

His coach, Sun Haiping revealed, last year that it was all or nothing for the superstar athlete.

“Officials from the State General Administration of Sports once told us if Liu could not win a gold in Beijing, all of his previous achievements would become meaningless,” Sun said.

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

With the United States and Australia set to dominate once again, hopes will hang on Wu Peng, who claimed silver in the 200m butterfly at last year’s world championships.

“We have the confidence to do our best, but we really have no specific event that will be able to produce a gold medal at the Beijing Games,” said head coach Zhang Yadong.

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

China 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 will carry Chinese hopes on the badminton courts, while the diving team will aim to top their six golds from nine medals at Athens.

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

They were China’s first top podium finishes since Bai Chongguang won the Asian light-heavyweight title in 1990 and bodes well for August.

Other medal chances should come in women’s weightlifting and shooting.

—AFP