体坛英语新闻：Yearender: Liu Xiang, Sun Yang lead China to London

"The competition of the London Games will be really tough. We are going to face stiff challenge," said head coach Huang Yubin.

In weightlifting and Judo, Chinese also need to work really hard to gain as many as acquired in Beijing, while the teams of diving, shooting, table tennis and badminton are as powerful as ever.

"Generally speaking, we have maintained our advantage in the sports that Chinese athletes traditionally excel in, but there is no much room for them to improve or win more gold medals in these sports," said Cai Jiadong, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC).

Chinese athletes also won a handful of gold medals in archery, rowing, canoeing, wrestling three years ago at home, but their competitiveness in these sports has slid.

"We know that we will meet tough challenge next year in London, but we will try our best to keep China in the leading positions on the overall medal list," Cai added.

For Chinese ball teams, the road to London is not smooth. With early elimination of the soccer teams, the nation's only medal hope in team ball sports will be shouldered by their women's volleyball team, which won the bronze medal in Beijing three years ago.

Following lackluster performance in last year's World Championships and a disappointing bottom eighth finish at this year's World Grand Prix Finals in Macao, the Chinese women's volleyball team, led by new head coach Yu Juemin, surprisingly rebounded to win the title at the Asian Championships and the bronze medal at the World Cup in Japan.

"I strongly believe they will have a big chance to win a medal next year in London," said former head coach Chen Zhonghe, who guided China to back-to-back titles at the World Cup in 2003 and the Athens Games in 2004.

Without Yao Ming, is it possible for the Chinese men's basketball team to repeat their consecutive top eight finishes in Athens and Beijing?

It seems to be a Mission Impossible.

Robert Donewald Jr has just been sacked as head coach of Chinese Basketball Association's (CBA) Xinjiang Guanghui club. It's bad news for the American, but now he can focus on the Chinese national team and work out a plan to make them more competitive than when they sluggishly won the Asian Championships in Wuhan, China this summer.

Power forward Yi Jianlian, who is still struggling to keep his position in an NBA team, and former NBA player Wang Zhizhi, will lead the Chinese offense in the absence of Yao, but they obviously need more support from their teammates.