Several things stand between China and canoeing greatness - Europe, for one, diet another - but Josef Capousek thinks one change could shift the balance beyond doubt.

"If they improve the quality of the coaches, I think China will be world No 1," the head coach of China's Olympic canoe-kayak squad told China Daily in Beijing.

Josef Capousek(second from left)talks with his players at the training centre of Qiandaohu Lake, East China's Zhejiang Province.

Capousek, 61, was drafted in to bolster China's prospects at the 2008 Beijing Games in March 2005 as part of the nation's 119 Project. This refers to the number of Olympic medals on offer at the Athens Games in track and field, swimming and canoe-kayak, three areas where China is still playing catch-up. It will rise to 122 during the Beijing Games.

The significance of the project can be seen in the results at Athens, where China ranked second with 32 gold, four fewer than the United States. Twenty of the US' gold came in track and field and swimming, compared to three for China.

Officials now hope that a costly drive to import foreign coaches across the whole spectrum of Olympic sports will pay dividends and tilt the balance.

Former Sweden coach Marika Domanski-Lyfors took over China's women's soccer team last week, following in the footsteps of Japan's Masayo Imura (synchronized swimming), Ratomir Dujkovic of Serbia (men's soccer), American Michael Bastian (women's softball), Lithuanian Jonas Kazlauskas (men's basketball), and South Korean Kim Sang-ryul (men's field hockey) among others.

In Athens four years ago, China had seven foreign coaches with its teams.

Now expectations of Capousek are high after Meng Guanliang and Yang Wenjun took China's first canoeing gold in Athens three years ago in the flatwater C2 500 with a dramatic photo finish that could have seen any of a handful of competitors win it.

Capousek aims to make sure events in Beijing are not so hit or miss. Having spent a quarter of a century coaching Germany's national squad, he can see what is wrong, and what needs fixing.

"The problem in China is that everything must go fast," he said. "They go like this (clicks his fingers) and you must have an Olympic champion. They forget it's a long process to build an athlete."

"We need to develop more professionals," China Canoeing Association Secretary-General Song Guangli told China Daily. "We have sent people overseas to learn new skills and ideas, but the number of coaches here is still quite limited."

So are Capousek's changes welcome? "The results of the athletes speak for themselves," Song said.

"In foreign countries, there are many kayaking clubs, but in China there are almost none, and many of the boats are owned by the state," Chen Chunxin, competition manager for kayaking at the Beijing Games, told People's Daily last week, adding that he had only kayaked once or twice himself.