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Unus Alladin

China are celebrating their best-ever gold medal haul and their highest placing on the medals table after 16 days of competition full of surprises - and a few disappointments.

The mainland team can truly lay claim to being a sports superpower after finishing second in the overall standings on 32 gold medals - four more than in Sydney 2000 - behind traditional powerhouse the United States, who took home 35 golds.

China also finished ahead of Russia for the first time, while boosting the likelihood of even more gold medals when the Games are held in Beijing in four years' time.

As the Athens Games closed on Sunday, China began counting down to hosting the 2008 Olympics - a source of enormous pride for the Chinese state.

'We have done very well and we have finished beyond our target, knowing that winning gold medals would be a lot tougher than in Sydney,'' said China's chef de mission, Yuan Weimin.

'We didn't expect to win so many gold medals. We were hoping for 24, but we got more than that, which was a pleasant surprise. We still have a lot of work to do with the Olympics coming to our country next time. Of course, we want to win more gold medals and Beijing will be an opportunity for us to do so,' he said.

China were full of surprises - both good and bad - as they improved on their previous best finish at the Games, which was third overall in Sydney. China rejoined the Olympic movement in 1979 after decades of isolation before competing again at the Los Angeles Games in 1984.

As in previous Olympics, China's badminton players, divers, weightlifters, table tennis players and shooters won the bulk of the gold medals.

But there were disappointments even within these sports. The Chinese failed to make a clean sweep of gold medals in table tennis - the country's most traditional of all sports - with the men's singles eluding their grasp.

The badminton players also experienced mixed fortunes. They won women's singles and doubles titles, plus the mixed doubles gold, but the men failed to match their female counterparts and suffered humiliation in singles and doubles despite their status as Thomas Cup holders.

There was more disappointment in gymnastics, where China captured just one gold and two bronze medals when three gold medals would have been the norm.

Two-time Sydney Olympic champion Li Xiaopeng was a bitter disappointment, winning only a bronze in the men's parallel bars. Only Teng Haibin's gold in men's pommel horse rescued China from a completely disastrous campaign.

The judokas were expected to fare better, too, with female heavyweight Sun Fuming a major let-down in the women's over-78kg category. The 30-year-old Atlanta Games champion had to settle for bronze in what was her last hurrah in a major international competition before retiring.

However, the divers performed admirably, winning six golds - but it should have been seven after Peng Bo and Wang Kenan threw away certain gold by flopping on their last dive in the men's synchronised three-metre springboard event. Peng later redeemed himself by taking gold in the 3m springboard.

Still, China surprised in several sports where they are not normally considered strong, which helped the mainland break the 30-gold barrier.

Li Ting and Sun Tiantian's victory in the women's doubles in tennis caught everybody by surprise. The same can be said of Wang Xu's gold in the women's 72kg freestyle wrestling.

And who could forget Jia Zhanbo's victory in the men's 50m rifle three positions? He was gifted victory by Matthew Eammons, who fired his last shot at somebody's else target just when it looked as if gold was a mere formality for the 23-year-old American.

China got the ball rolling when Du Li won the first gold medal of the Games in the women's 10m air rifle. Things got better, culminating in Liu Xiang's magnificent victory in the 110m men's hurdles. Xing Huina's surprising triumph in the women's 10,000 metres also raised eyebrows as did canoeists Meng Guanliang and Yang Wenjun's bolt-from-the-blue victory in the men's C2 500m.

The mainland's pulsating 3-2 victory over Russia in the women's volleyball final - their first gold in 20 years - was also among the highlights of a most successful campaign.

Just as they did in Sydney four years ago, Chen Zhong became the last Olympic gold medallist for China when she struck gold in the women's over-67kg taekwondo competition.

'We did well in some sports but also disappointed in others. We kind of evened things out,'' said Yuan. 'We expected to win several gold medals in our strong sports, but we didn't expect to win gold medals in sports we don't consider ourselves world beaters.''



Red storm rising - new superpower emerges