DOHA, Dec 15 - China's huge haul of gold medals at the Asian Games was mission accomplished for their athletes but no guarantee of success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, chef de mission Liu Peng said on Friday.

Liu Peng

"Despite the fact that China successfully fulfilled its set goal for the Doha Asian Games, we are well aware of our weaknesses when analysing our performance," Liu told a news conference.

China's gold-grabbing performance in the Qatari capital was no guarantee they would do the same in 2008, Liu said.

"Asian Games is different from the Olympics in terms of competition rules ... and competitors. In many sports Asia is not in the leading position across the world. Even in some of Asia's strong sports, the top athletes didn't participate.

"It is clear that we are facing more severe situation and harder tasks in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics in spite our our excellent results in Doha. We must redouble our efforts to meet the coming greater challenges."

ALARM BELLS

The failure of the some of China's big names to win gold "rang alarms", said Liu, but he declined to talk about specific cases and was reluctant to put it down to the weight of expectation.

"All athletes taking part in big events have stress," he said. "If someone says they don't they're lying. We need to learn from both the athletes that did well and those that didn't."

Liu also said the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) officials had been in Doha and "learned a lot of valuable experience and expertise".

A ban on Chinese athletes taking part in endorsements and other commercial activities had been a "rumour", said Liu, although squad members had always been discouraged from overdoing it.

One athlete who fell foul of this discouragement was Olympic diving champion Tian Liang, who was kicked off the national team last year for taking part in too many "social" activities.

National diving coach Zhou Jihong looked to have opened the door for his return, however, according to the Xinhua news agency.

"We are planning to hold a trial for the Beijing Games in 2007. Whether Tian can be selected to the national team again, and how he does his performance, all will come into view at that time," she said, adding that he would have to be more of a team player.