Athletics-Coe says China on track for Olympic gold rush

OSAKA, Japan, Aug 21 (Reuters) Double Olympic champion Sebastian Coe believes Chinese athletes could achieve dramatic success in track and field events at the Beijing Games next year.

The chairman of London's 2012 Olympic organising committee also expects the 2008 hosts to win several gold medals with athletes yet to appear on the international radar.

''I think the Chinese are going to come through quite powerfully over the next year,'' Briton Coe told Reuters before the world championships starting in Osaka this weekend.

''They are not going to upend the Americans in track and field but it will be a very, very good Olympic team that's ahead of them in the medals table.'' Liu Xiang became the first Chinese male to win an Olympic track athletics gold with victory in the 110 metres hurdles at the 2004 Athens Games and now holds the world record.

Coe predicted more of the same from the Chinese in front of their home crowd next year and better results in Osaka than Liu's solitary silver at the 2005 Helsinki championships.

''I think the Chinese will have dramatically more finalists here in Osaka,'' said Coe, who won 1,500 metres gold at Moscow (1980) and Los Angeles (1984).

''You don't necessarily win if you get in a final but you're chances are better than if you don't. I think they will do better than Helsinki in terms of a medal haul.'' CAST SHADOW Coe also warned critics not to cast shadow over any potential success by Chinese track and field athletes in Beijing.

''The Chinese have often been quite reticent about what they've been doing in coaching terms,'' the former 800 metres world record holder added.

''It's just the nature of the culture.

''The problem is we now live in an environment, whether it's China, the Unites States or the U.K., where any performance that is unexpected arouses suspicion.

''I'm sure that doing what I did back in 1979, 1980 and 1981 in this climate there would have been a huge level of suspicion.'' Coe added: ''A lot of that suspicion comes from people who don't fundamentally understand that performances don't tend to come out of the blue.

''The Spanish team only won one gold medal in Seoul (in 1988).

By the time they got to Barcelona in front of a home Games in 2002, they got 13.'' Coe was realistic about Britain's chances in Osaka and Beijing but believes British athletes will similarly come good at the 2012 London Games.

''Osaka is not a write-off but we're coming with a realistic set of ambitions,'' he said.

''We have been found wanting at a true international level.

''Beijing will be a tough Games but I don't rule out us coming out of the London Olympics with our best medal haul ever.'' REUTERS BJR KN1525