Cui Dalin, China's deputy sports minister, played down prospects of a huge medals haul for the hosts at a news conference on the eve of celebrations to mark 1,000 days until the opening of the Beijing Olympics.

"Not only in 2008 but beyond, it's impossible to overtake the US and Russian teams," he said.

He pointed out that though China had collected its best ever tally of 63 medals last year in Athens, the US had won 103. "Elite sport in the US is very strong," he said. "They are an elite power. The difference is obvious.”

China finished second to the US in the medals table in Athens, causing a number of surprises in sports where they had never been considered strong and edging traditional power Russia into third place in the medals table.

But Cui said though China won 32 gold medals to Russia's 29, the Russians had collected 92 medals overall and were still a stronger team.

"Finishing ahead of Russia was a happy coincidence," he said. "There were six team sports in which China and Russia were in the final and, fortunately, China won all six.

"If we had won only three of those, Russia would have still been ahead."

Second tier

Cui said he placed China on the same level as the second tier of sporting nations made up of Australia, Japan, Germany and France.

Though the US topped the medals table in Athens with 35 golds, the fact that China finished just three behind prompted widespread speculation in the sporting world that the Chinese would easily dominate the Beijing Games four years later.

Chinese officials have been busy playing down such speculation ever since.

Cui said China's goal was to improve on its Athens medal tally but he considered that to be a great challenge.

"Our all-round strength is still not so high," he said. "There are some sports in which we are still relatively weak like athletics, swimming, rowing, sailing and canoeing and we don't do very well in ball games like basketball, soccer and volleyball."

Cui said China had 2,000 athletes training for the Olympics from which it would select a team for Beijing of more than 400 for the first time.

He said athletes would be encouraged with larger bonus incentives than for Athens when gold medallists were awarded 200,000 yuan ($25,000). Silver and bronze medallists picked up 120,000 yuan ($15,000) and 80,000 yuan ($10,000) respectively.

The Beijing bonus had not yet been fixed, he added.

China collected some unexpected medals in Athens, notably the gold won by tennis women's doubles team Sun Tiantian and Li Ting.

"That was the most surprising one," Cui said. "Our performance level in tennis is quite low compared to other countries. But I think this type of case could happen again in Beijing."