Shanghai is banking on its star athletes to bring back two gold medals from next month's Beijing Olympic Games.

Olympic 110m hurdle champion Liu Xiang, former world No. 1 paddler Wang Liqin and divers Wu Minxia and Huo Liang will be leading Shanghai's charge in Beijing.

City sports officials expect at least 50 local athletes to make it to the Chinese Olympic squad this time. The official team announcement will be made on July 20.

Shanghai had sent 38 athletes to the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. They returned with one gold medal and a half, ranking 10th among the 30-plus municipalities, provinces and special administrative regions across the country.

"Given the uncertainty and surprise in competitive sports today, it will not be easy for Shanghai to achieve its target of two gold medals," said Yu Chen, director of the Shanghai Sports Administration.

Yu said he expected Shanghai-based athletes to clinch a total of six medals in 13 events, including artistic synchronised swimming, swimming and archery - the same as in 2004.

Athens table tennis bronze medalist Wang Liqin will compete in the group event - he won the doubles at 2000 Sydney, while Wu Minxia will vie for top honors in the women's synchronised 3-meters springboard.

But even if both of them succeeded in their respective events, it would only mean one gold medal for Shanghai as they will be counted as team effort and not as individual winners.

The biggest test however will be for Liu Xiang, who just had his world record broken by promising Cuban Dayron Robles.

Local officials are also hopeful that Huo Liang, who has been entered in the men's diving synchronised 10m platform, will be able to scoop up medals in the pool.

Meanwhile, officials said that most of the 360,000 tickets for the Olympic soccer matches to be held in Shanghai next month had been sold out and expect an average of 50,000 spectators for each of the matches.

Plans are afoot also to set up a giant screen in a square outside the Shanghai Stadium during the games, Wang Wei, the Shanghai office director, said yesterday.

(Shanghai Daily July 3, 2008)