Although China's Liu Xiang is the 110 meters hurdles world record holder and the Olympic and world champion, veteran US high hurdler Allen Johnson does not consider him the Olympic favorite.

Instead, the former Olympic and world champion believes Cuban Dayron Robles will win the race.

"In my eyes he is the favorite to win the gold medal," Johnson told a teleconference to promote next week's Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa. "If both of them run their best races, I think Robles will win."

Johnson said the pressure on Liu to win in Beijing would not be as much a factor as Robles's speed.

"Put it in perspective," Johnson said, "Robles ran 7.33 (for the 60 meters hurdles) indoors, that's blazing fast. Liu Xiang has a personal best of 7.42. That's a huge difference."

Liu set his world mark of 12.88 seconds in 2006. He and Robles both ran 12.92 last year, a personal best for the Cuban.

Robles also dominated the indoor regular season this year, running seven of the eight fastest times in Liu's absence. He clocked 7.33 seconds, narrowly outside Briton Colin Jackson's world record of 7.30 seconds.

"He was on fire," Johnson said.

The fire, though, was temporarily doused in the preliminaries of the world indoor championships' 60 hurdles.

The 21-year-old Robles incorrectly thought there was a false start and stopped running while Liu blazed to victory. Liu went on to add the world indoor title to his collection of gold medals.

(Agencies April 18, 2008)