Chef de Mission of the Japanese Olympic delegation said that the host China would be Japan's biggest competitor in the upcoming Games after its flag-raising ceremony in the Olympic Village on Wednesday.

Tomiaki Fukuda, also president of the Japanese Wrestling Federation, said that "Japan will have tough competition with China especially in women's marathon, artistic gymnastics and swimming."

"Meanwhile, athletes from other delegations also improved rapidly in the past few years and they will also be great dangers to our athletes," added Fukuda.

Fukuda was also the chief of the Japanese delegation in the 2004 Athens Games, where Japan had a boosting victory powered by a growing-up of women and a renaissance in judo, swimming, wrestling and gymnastics. Japan won 16 gold medals after winning less than 10 golds for the previous four summer Games. Most of those gold medalists will be present to the Beijing Olympics.

"It will a difficult task for us to exceed or even to tie what we got in Athens," said Fukuda. "37 medals will be hard to get. And now our goal is to get at least 10 golds, 30 medals. But I still hope that all Japanese athletes will perform well or even over their normal level. We will try best to be better than we did in Athens."

"China may top the medal tally if they perform well, as they are the host and some athletes must have been preparing since four years ago or even earlier. They will get good results."

Japan sent a 339-athlete delegation to China, including 170 men and 169 women athletes. Judo, women's wrestling, swimming, athletics will be their biggest hope for golds.

(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2008)