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Unus Alladin

The demise of the controversial coach has left a void in the nation's challenge

China's head athletics coach, Feng Shuyoung, is well aware his country's successes at the Olympics in track and field have been few and far between.

With Ma's Army now a distant memory, the legendary band of female long-distance runners led by coach Ma Junren disbanded along with his unorthodox style of training, China  needs to find a new source of inspiration to realise it's high ambitions in the Olympic arena.

So it was no surprise when Feng announced he had substantially downsized the mainland's hopes for medals in track and field, focusing on just three or four stars he believes can make the grade.

'We won't win many medals in track and field,' said Feng, acknowledging that China were still lagging behind other developed countries in the sport.

Feng singled out hurdles star Liu Xiang as the brightest gold medal prospect.

He also liked the chances of 5,000 metres, 10,000 metres and women's marathon runner Sun Yingji, (above) even though the 10,000 metres bronze medallist at last year's World Championships in Paris has not been in the best of form lately.

'Liu will present our biggest chance of gold in Athens,' said Feng of the 21-year-old.

'We have high hopes of Liu and the pressure will be on him to produce. But he doesn't have the same experience as the other competitors. He's still very young.' he said.

China have in their squad several well-respected woman hammer throwers and Feng believes one of them could at least win a medal, if not gold. Zhang Wenxiu, who is just 19 years old, is considered a top medal prospect for Beijing in 2008. She will compete in Athens along with Gu Yuan.

'Zhang has emerged as China's best hammer thrower as she has maintained good form in the past two years. She is only 19 years old and she is capable of winning a medal,' said Feng.

Zhang set an Asian record early in April in Nanning with a distance of 72.37 metres - but her form has also not been encouraging lately. Winning a medal in Athens may prove beyond her.

Feng feels the track and field medals will be more evenly spread among the competing nations in this Olympiad.

'More nations will be winning a cut of the medals. Athletics has become a global sport and some nations who haven't won medals before in track and field might do so in Athens,' said Feng.

He was adamant that Russia would this time beat the United States in the medals count in track and field.

'I think the Russians will throw a few surprises this time around. Russia actually won more gold medals than the US at last year's World Indoor Championships [in Budapest] and we could see the same pattern occurring in Athens. It should be a very interesting period of competition,' he said.

Feng said the US might look invincible in the men's and women's sprints on paper, but the Russians were snapping at the Americans' heels.

'We could see Marion Jones lose to Russians in her event. Certainly Jones has been beaten by a Russian in the long jump this year [by Tatyana Lebedeva at Gateshead, England, in June],' said Feng.

'Jones might struggle,' said Feng of the Sydney Olympic triple gold medallist, who has been haunted by a drugs controversy and who failed to qualify in either short flat sprint in the US trials.



Beyond Ma's Army