DOHA : China's world-record holder Liu Xiang will be defending his title in the 110-meter hurdles, and Saudi Arabia has brought in one of the world's best coaches to prepare its team for the Asian Games' athletics competition.

In what is seen as a major test ahead of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, hundreds of athletes from around the region are to take part at Khalifa stadium in the games' track and field events, which account for 45 of the overall gold medals.

Some big names won't be among them, however, when the programme starts on Thursday. Japan will be without its biggest star, Olympic hammer throwing champion Koji Murofushi. And host Qatar's world champion steeplechaser Saif Saaeed Shaheen has pulled out with an Achilles heel problem.

Murofushi, son of five-time Asian Games champion Shigenobu Murofushi, was hoping to win his third straight Asian Games title after being declared the Athens champion when Hungary's Adrian Annus refused to take a mandatory drug test.

Even so, the Murofushi dynasty may continue — Murofushi's younger sister, Yuka, is scheduled to compete in the discus.

Shaheen formally withdrew on the eve of the opening ceremonies. Although he has had an Achilles tendon problem for some time, and he informed his manager earlier in the week that he might not compete, Qatar waited until the last minute to make it official.

Full speed ahead

China, meanwhile, is going onto the track at full speed.

After equalling the World mark with his gold medal run at the Athens Olympics, Liu broke the World record in the event in July this year, running 12.88 seconds in Lausanne, Switzerland. He bettered the record of 12.91 he shared with Britain's Colin Jackson, who set the mark in 1993.

The 23-year-old hurdler from Shanghai was setting his goal at a modest 13.20 seconds in Doha, the Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted his coach, Sun Haiping, as saying. That time would be good enough to better his own Asian Games' record of 13.27 set in Busan, South Korea in 2002.

China has some vacancies, too — the biggest being distance runner Xing Huina, the Olympic 10,000 meter champion. But the team is taking the games as an opportunity to try out some of its younger athletes ahead of Beijing, when it hopes to impress the world on its home turf.

Saudi Arabia is also seeing Doha as a run-up to the Olympics and has recruited John Smith, who has coached such sprint greats as former 100-meter world record holder Maurice Greene and Ato Bolden, to work with its team.

Smith connection

Smith's connection with the Saudis goes back to 1993, and he led 400-meter hurdler Hadi Sou'an Al Somayli to a silver in Sydney in 2000, the country's first Olympic athletics medal.

He is now working with world-class long jumpers Mohammed Al Khuwaildi and Hussain Taher Al Saba.

India's Anju Bobby George is another of his protégés who will be competing here. ``I want to win everything,'' Smith said. ``When one person wins, it spreads like a cold.''

Injuries weren't the only reason behind some of the absences. Indian discus thrower Seema Antil failed an out-of-competition doping test and withdrew from the games.

Antil, who was stripped of her 2000 junior world championships title after testing positive to a banned stimulant, failed a test conducted last week during a training camp in Oman by the Sports Authority of India, a senior Indian team official said.

Antil, 23, won a silver medal in women's discus at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne earlier this year. — AP

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