(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-03-04 10:22

BEIJING, March 3 - Olympic champions Wang Liqin and Wang Nan will make the short trip from Guangzhou to Hong Kong this week to play for a place in the Beijing Games after helping China sweep the 49th world team championships.

China's table tennis veterans Wang Nan (L) and Wang Liqin (R) walk out of the rail station in Hong Kong with men's team coach Liu Guoliang, March 3, 2008. [Xinhua]

Four places in China's team for their first Olympics on home soil have already been taken by Ma Lin, Wang Hao, Zhang Yining and Guo Yue, leaving two spots up for grabs at the Asian Olympic qualifiers, which start on Thursday.

With the world's top four men and top five women all Chinese, competition to qualify for the home team for the August 8-24 Games is intense and it was by no means certain that the two Wangs would be picked for the qualifiers.

Solid performances from Sydney Olympic women's singles champion Wang Nan and Athens men's doubles champion Wang Liqin at the world team championships, however, secured them the right to play for a third Games appearance each.

"Wang Liqin and Wang Nan are representing China in the Asian qualifiers," Liu Fengyan, director of China's table tennis and badminton administration, told Titan Sports.

The other four members of China's team secured their Beijing berths by courtesy of their positions as the top two in the men's and women's world rankings in January.

17 WORLD TITLES

World number three Wang Liqin, 29, won doubles gold at the Sydney Olympics and is a three-times world champion but has yet to play in an Olympic singles final.

"Wang Liqin and I will take off for Hong Kong tomorrow and his Olympic campaign starts on March 6," Liu Guoliang, men's team coach, told the First newspaper.

"I think it's good for him because it could give him more practice than the others."

Wang Nan, also 29, has three Olympic gold medals and 17 world titles in her collection and has long said that she would like to round out her career by playing in an Olympics on home soil.

Chinese papers on Monday hailed the fourth consecutive sweeps of both team events at the weekend and predicted China's domination of the Beijing Olympics in what is still called the "National Sport".

The championships had extra importance this year as team titles will replace the men and women's doubles in Beijing, a move widely seen as an attempt to lessen the likelihood of a Chinese sweep of the medals.

"Worlds' win smashes ITTF's plot," the First newspaper said in its headline.

Eleven places in both the men's and women's draws for Beijing will be up for grabs at the Asian qualifiers, which run from Thursday to Sunday.