China's Liu Xiang, who won the men's 110m hurdles gold medal in the Athens Olympics, can break the world record of 12.91 seconds in the 2008 Beijing Games, his coach Sun Haiping said on Wednesday.

Sun said that the 23-year-old Liu has been taking the Beijing Olympics as his top priority soon after winning in Athens in 2004. 

"Liu will make new breakthroughs in Beijing, doing even better than 12.91," Sun said.

Liu took the Olympic gold medal in Athens by tying the world record of 12.91 seconds but has never come close to the time since.

Liu, who won the silver medal in the Helsinki world championships last year, quit China's season-opening indoor tournament in Shanghai last weekend because of an ankle injury.

Sun said that Liu's recovery is good and he expects to return fit in seven to 10 days. "There are more than three weeks before the Moscow world indoor championships on March 10, so it will not affect his competition there," he said.

He added that Liu has not stopped training after the ankle injury and his trainings are all done according to the schedule.

Sun has been successful during the years to prevent Liu from any serious injuries while maintaining intensified training.

But he has enough reasons to worry about his student and said they are trying to find solutions to avoiding possible injuries in the future.

"I really worry about his ligament, which might become a problem in the future. And we must also ensure his training quality," the coach said.

The Moscow indoor worlds will be Liu's first major competition this year and he will run the 60m hurdles there. "Our goal is to run within 7.50 seconds and win a medal in Moscow."

Liu's best indoor performance was a silver medal and 7.36 seconds achieved in the 2004 world indoor championships in Budapest.

His main rivals are world champion Ladji Doucoure of France and US duo Terrene Trammell and Domimque Arnold.

"Trammell will be a strong rival. He is very fast in the first 30 meters," Sun said.

Sun was satisfied with the newly finished winter training. But to realize his goal in the 2008 Olympics, Liu will have to raise his training to a new and higher level in 2007.

"We have achieved our scheduled objectives in the winter training and Liu has laid a solid foundation for a more difficult 2007.

"We will intensify the strength training in the new season. If Liu can complete these tasks, his body quality and strength will be greatly improved."

With the high hurdles event kept off the Golden League list in 2006, Liu will have a "comfortable" season. Apart from the Moscow championships, he will only have two other big competitions -- the Athens World Cup in August and the Doha Asian Games in December.

"The World Cup is one of the three most important athletics tournaments only after the Olympics and the world championships. And Athens is Liu's lucky place, so we will try our best to get a good result," Sun said.

The coach predicted that Liu will be able to keep his time around 13.10 in 2006.

"If we want to run within 13.10, more special training is needed."

(Xinhua News Agency February 23, 2006)