The eight gold medals at the Aarhus world championships did not make Chinese gymnasts more relaxed to compete in next month's Asian Games.

The world champion squad keep a low profile pending the year-end grand gathering despite the fact that they steamrollered their rivals to pick up a record eight out of 14 titles on offer at the worlds last month, including both the coveted team crowns.

"For us, the only difference between the world championships and the Asian Games is the number of rivals. We had to face a lot of opponents in Aarhus and in Doha, only a few. But the challenges are still there," said Chinese head coach Huang Yubin.

"We'll try to beat them but first of all we have to avoid making mistakes," he said.

China will send the entire Aarhus team bar one to Doha, with injured Olympic champions Li Xiaopeng, Huang Xu and Teng Haibin still missing.

Spearheaded by triple world champion Yang Wei, the all-mighty side have every reason to rest easy as they enjoyed long-time dominance over Asian arena, collecting 91 out of the 112 gymnastics gold medals in the past eight games they participated. In the 2002 Asiad, they had 13 including shared titles out of a total of 14.

However, the 2004 Olympic waterloo defeat has taught them to keep wary even at an Asian Games which does not feature powerhouses Romania, United States and Russia. The 2000 Olympic champion team finished a sole men's pommel horse title in Athens, a heavy blow to the domestic pre-game expectation and a team which won five titles in the 2003 world championships in Anaheim.

"It's very dangerous for our gymnasts to regard themselves as indisputable number one in Aisa," said team leader Zhang Peiwen. "Gymnastics is a sport full of surprises and accidents, we have to remember what we experienced in Athens two years ago."

In particular, Zhang warned Chinese male gymnasts against a Japanese team seeking revenge.

"In Aarhus, we beat Olympic champions Japan for the men's team title, and unfortunately Japanese failed to make a single gold. But that might be the very impetus for them to stage a big comeback," he said. "They have the strength, the technique and the determination to do so."

In Doha, Japanese all-around experts will focus on men's team and all-around competitions and their super star Hiroyuki Tomita is expected to settle the budding rivalry with Chinese captain Yang Wei.

"I think the Asiad men's all-around will be a two-way battle between Tomita and me. We are both world class gymnasts and our competition is all about stability," said Yang, who toppled Tomita twice for all-around and parallel bars titles in Aarhus.

Chinese diva Cheng Fei, best female gymnast at Aarhus worlds, is aware of challenges from DPRK women vault specialists, who have developed difficult maneuvers comparative to her signature vault. And the whole DPRK team is a force to be reckoned with on women's team and uneven bars as well.

Gymnasts from South Korea and Kazakhstan may also split a couple of apparatus medals, but are not able to pose threat as teams.