Sydney Olympics diving champion Tian Liang is hoping that his second Athens trip this year would be another huge success.

"I would like to repeat the World Cup feat at the Athens Olympic Games,"said the 24-year-old Tian, totally frank about his goal at the Aug. 13-29 Olympic Games.

Tian pulled off both the individual and synchronized platform titles at the World Cup in February in Athens.

"I want to defend my individual title," the Chongqing-native said. "And the synchronized platform gold medal is also what I have dreamed of for the past four years."

Tian edged teammate Hu Jia to take the individual victory but he and Hu fell to Russian pair Dmitri Saoutine and Igor Luokachine to settle for the silver at the Sydney Games where synchronized diving events were officially admitted for the first time.

"I know it is very hard with so many strong opponents around," he added.

"You have to work hard in training and can't afford any mistakes in the competition," said Tian.

Few people ever know how much pressure Tian has to deal with behind his trade-mark shining smile.

"I think my mentality has changed a little bit after I won the Olympic and world titles because there are so much expectations from my fans and people I care about," Tian said.

Tian claimed two world titles from 1998 and 2001 Swimming World Championships before losing to Canadian Alexandre Despatie to settle for a bronze partly due to toe injury during the Barcelona worlds last year.

"People have been used to my winning every event. They will be extremely disappointed if I lose," he said.

"I believe in his capability. He won't be dwarfed by any opponents because of one or two defeats and knows how to take control of himself, " said Tian's coach Zhang Ting.

"As long as he can bring his ability to a full display, he will be the hardest diver to beat in the world," Zhang added.

After the loss at the Barcelona worlds, Tian picked up new dives during the winter training camp and improved the total difficulty degree of his dives by 0.5 point compared with that at the worlds, a big step for a diver at such high level.

"I am trying my best to put the pressure behind me and concentrate on my training, It's diving, a lot of diving now and little else," Tian said.

"I am ready and I am confident," he added.