China is unlikely to relinquish its 24-year grip on the top of the Asian Games medals table despite using Doha to give their younger athletes big-event experience ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

World gymnastic champion Cheng Fei arrives in Doha in November 27. [Xinhua]

With 110-meter hurdles world-record holder Liu Xiang leading the way, no one will be surprised if China's 647-member Doha delegation improve on the 150 gold medals the country won at the Pusan Games in South Korea in 2002.

The huge investment in athletes for Beijing 2008 has produced a great depth of talent in Olympic sports and the relentless pursuit of gold is y ingrained in China's sports system.

"There is no excuse not to win a gold medal at the Asian Games," Tom Maher, head coach of the defending champions women's basketball team, told a news conference earlier this month.

Around two-thirds of the delegation has no experience of top-level international competition and big names such as Athens Olympic champions Xing Huina (10,000m) and swimmer Luo Xuejuan (100 breaststroke) are absent.

There are, however, plenty of world- class performers and China's gymnasts, swimmers, divers and shooters will be trying to reproduce the dominance they achieved in 2002.

Cheng Fei and Yang Wei, both triple world champions, are part of a gymnastics squad that features all but one of the team that won eight gold medals at the world championships in Aarhus, Denmark, last month.

"We are competing for the gold medals in all the 14 events. At the Pusan Games we won 12. We can't do less than that," said head coach Huang Yubin.

Ma Lin, the men's world No. 2 is in a table tennis squad that won three golds at Pusan, despite the absence of r Wang Liqin.

The Chinese men drew a blank in the badminton in Pusan but it has world champion Lin Dan in its squad.

A lot of the focus in China will be on how the men's basketball and soccer teams fare.

Yao Ming, the Houston Rockets center was given permission to skip the Games, so Wang Zhizhi, a former NBA player, leads a team including teenage prospect Yi Jianlian, who will carry the flag at the opening ceremony on Friday.

Serbian Ratomir Dujkovic has his first chance to impress with the soccer team he took over last month.

"The foreign coach needs some time to acclimatize as well as the footballers. We just hope they do their best," Xiao Tian, vice-chief of the Games delegation, said.

China's focus on Beijing 2008 has been so total over the last five years that, with a few exceptions, the sports which do not feature at Olympic s will be their weakest.

"We want to train our youngsters for the Olympics," Cui Dalin secretary- general of the delegation told a news conference earlier this month. "But we also care about the non-Olympic sports.

"We are not good at those events, except wushu, but we are sending our best athletes, like snooker player Ding Junhui and our top wushu teams."