Special report:   2008 Olympic Games    

    BRUSSELS, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Wang Dayong, Belgium's legendary Chinese-born table tennis head coach, is looking forward to his sixth consecutive Olympic Games as a coach -- and this time in Beijing, capital of his home country.

    Wang, 63, and his 39-year-old protege, Jean-Michel Saive, will travel to Beijing this week to attend the Olympiad, which will be the sixth for both men.

    "I keep training everyday so that I will be physically fit to attend the Beijing Games. To be part of the Games in my home country as a coach will fulfil a lifetime dream," said Wang in a recent interview with Xinhua.

    The Beijing Games could be the last Olympiad for Wang, who has been coach of the Belgian national team since 1989 and is to retire in a few years.

    He rose to fame after coaching Saive to become the world No. 1 in 1994 and 1995 and leading Belgium to a runners-up finish at the world team championships in 2001.

    Although he has already been granted Belgian citizenship, he said he always has China in his heart.

    "I am always Chinese, and I represent a window through which foreign players will have a look at China," said Wang, who is easygoing, gentlemanlike, and warm-hearted.

    The legendary coach has a career spanning many countries and continents.

    A native of Tianjin bordering Beijing, he was a player of the Beijing table tennis team until the early 1970s. He had been coachof Somalia, Chile and Ecuador before returning to Beijing in 1986,where he set up an international table tennis center for training foreign table tennis players.

    "China is a table tennis superpower, and has made enormous contributions to the development of the sport worldwide by sending its coaches abroad," Wang said.

    The overall standard of table tennis in the world has been elevated partly due to the efforts by Chinese-born coaches and players in foreign teams, he said.

    He said China should welcome challenges from the rest of the world, and had no reason to worry about being targeted by the rest of the world.

    Wang, who returns to China many times a year as his players play tournaments in China, is proud of an ever-stronger China.

    "The song 'love for my home country' is the favorite of my wife(an opera singer in Belgium) and I. As a Chinese living abroad for many years, we have much, much deep understanding of and heart-felt love for our home country," he said.

    Wang, who has been appointed permanent coach of Belgium due to his record-setting performance, had won the hearts not only from his players, but also from the skeptics.

    Wang recalled the hard times during his early years in Belgium when many Belgians said the Chinese could not coach European tabletennis players.

    But Wang's determination and tenacious efforts led Saive to the top of world rankings and a silver medal at the 1993 World Championships, silencing all the skeptics in Belgium and convincing those Europeans who doubted the abilities of Chinese coaches on the continent.

    Wang, who had already won a Merit Award from the International Table Tennis Federation, is no doubt one of the most successful Chinese coaches abroad.

    Saive described Wang as a "god" of table tennis. In a bestseller book he wrote, the former world No. 1 said he fully accepted the coaching methods and concepts of Wang, who "had mysterious ability to predict win or loss."

    But speaking of the "secret" of his success, Wang said: "Our generation keeps the Chinese traditional values. We are kind, modest and warm-hearted, and have succeeded in breaking up the psychological barrier between us and the Europeans."