Wang toughens up mentally as he seeks to cap his glittering career

Wang Liqin well deserves his name. The Chinese character Li stands for 'inspire', while Qin conjures up the notion of 'diligence'.

No one matches Wang in the star-studded Chinese table tennis team when it comes to drawing inspiration from hard work. He keeps voluminous diaries on virtually every competitive match he has played and reviews the logs play-by-play every time he re-encounters an old foe.

Wang, at 30 the oldest on the men's squad, is always the last one to leave the training hall each work day at the national team's training centre in Beijing and he is so diligent in the gym that he was once singled out by the team physician at an internal fitness lecture as having the 'perfect' six-pack abs. In the audience were admiring teammates, most of whom were in their early 20s.

But with the games looming large, the triple world singles champion and Olympic doubles winner in 2000, vows to commit himself even more in a bid to consummate an illustrious career.

'Intensive workouts have almost become habitual for me,' said the workaholic Wang. 'The Olympics is the ultimate prize, which generates extra motivation. I have a cabinet full of gold medals, but it hurts to have the Olympic singles title missing.'

And that hurts China as a whole, too. The landslide final defeat inflicted on Wang Hao in Athens at the hands of Korean Rye Seung-min left a glaring blot on the country's otherwise perfect record in the past three Olympics. Chinese players monopolised 11 of the 12 gold medals on offer in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens combined.

Wang Liqin and company know they can't come up short again for the jewel in the crown.