Time set to fly for SAR's top sprinter

For top Hong Kong sprinter Chiang Wai-hung, his travelling-time to running-time ratio for next month's World Championships in Edmonton is staggering.

The national men's 100 metres record holder is set to spend more than 20 hours travelling half the globe to Canada just to run a little more than 10 seconds - he will only compete in the 100m - but he is confident the trip will be an eye-opener for him.

Chiang will make his World Championships debut after qualifying for the men's 100m - he reached the International Amateur Athletic Federation's 'B' standard of 10.38 seconds when pushing his national record down to 10.37 last year.

Chiang said while he wouldn't fancy his chances of advancing to the second round, it would be a priceless experience to see how tup athletes such as Maurice Greene fine-tune themselves for medal-winning performances.

'Although I expect to run only one race, it's still worth going. It's a great opportunity to compete in such a big event and run at the same venue as the top stars. It's never a waste of time and money.

'I want to see how top athletes prepare during warm-ups. I know that some of them would try to keep themselves relaxed by listening to a Walkman while others would be 100 per cent focused and don't want to be disturbed by anybody. I'll see which would work best for me,' Chiang said.