Olympic champion 110m hurdler Liu Xiang, the standout track star competing at the Asian Games, intends to treat the gold medal race in Doha as a training run.

The Games don't even figure as a blip on the competition schedule of an elite athlete such as Liu Xiang, his coach explained.

Liu Xiang, 23, said that he had little left in the tank after a long season stretching back eight months that included a world record-setting performance on the European Grand Prix circuit.

"Competition is over for top athletes," he said at a joint press conference with coach Sun Haiping.

"They have all gone into winter training programmes now, but I am still out there having to work hard and train for competition."

Liu Xiang, whose gold medal in Athens was Chinas first-ever Olympic men's track title, has objected in the past to being forced by China's state sports administration to compete in "meaningless" second-class events in China.

He runs best when pushed to do so in world-class events in Europe or at the world championships and Olympics.

But Liu Xiang is keeping any such ideas to himself in Doha and has even thanked China¡¯s National Olympic Committee for bringing him.

Even so he admits the level of competition is beneath him and motivation must come from within because no one will push him in the heats or the final tomorrow.

"We are already in December so it is not the right time of the year to produce the great times but I am still going to do my best and try to beat my Asian Games record," he said.

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His coach said that Liu Xiang would give the race about the same level of intensity he delivers during normal training in Shanghai.

"We don't treat the Asian Games as a competition, we treat it really as more of a training session," said Haiping.

"If Liu Xiang performs as he normally does in winter training it will be fine. We want him to do well and we also want him to avoid injury. Those are our two goals here."

Haiping said it would be possible for Liu Xiang to break his own Asian Games record of 13.27 he set when winning the race four years ago in Busan.

"We are looking for about 13:20," said the coach.

Haiping said that Liu Xiang was already looking ahead to the world championships next year in Japan and then the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Liu Xiang, one of China's wealthiest sportsmen who earns millions of dollars a year from endorsements, said he felt no particular pressure from Chinese fans, who expect him to win in Beijing.

"I am 23 years old, my best is yet to come. I don't feel particularly under pressure because I have got the world record and an Olympic gold medal," he said.

Liu Xiang, who smashed his and Colin Jackson's world record in Lausanne in July timing 12.88, is one of only two world or Olympic athletics champions appearing in Doha. Bahrain's 2005 dual world titleholder Hansi Ramzi is the other.