China reflects after London Olympics, sees tough road to Rio
Delegation chief says there's a lot of work to do before 2016, after a tumultuous Games in which the team's performance was 'satisfactory'
China's sports mandarins had warned before the London Games that their athletes would struggle to match the table-topping gold medal haul they enjoyed in Beijing. They will take little comfort in being proved right.
China amassed 38 gold medals in London to reaffirm its status as a sporting superpower but finished behind the Americans, who take 46 titles back to the United States.
Reeled in by the US athletics team in the final days, China, which won 51 golds at Beijing, immediately spoke of plans to improve its "regular" performance.
London was at times a tumultuous Games for the Chinese delegation. They were angered by suspicions of doping in their swimming programme, dragged into scandal by their badminton team and stunned by the second successive Olympic failure of Liu Xiang.
China has long regarded Olympic success as going hand in hand with economic clout and global influence, and delegation chief Liu Peng said the team had a lot of work to do before the 2016 Rio Games and to "enlarge its international impact".
Liu, who described the performance as "satisfactory", said other countries were catching up with China in sports like table tennis, badminton, diving, gymnastics and weightlifting, while the Chinese were not making enough progress in other sports.