pore sprinters 'can compete with the best'

Dominique Arnold knows what it takes to mix it up with the best in the world. Six years ago, the former United States national champion was at the peak of his hurdling career, competing alongside the likes of Liu Xiang, Dayron Robles and Aries Merritt. Liu was the then-Olympic men's 110m hurdles champion, while Robles and Merritt would go on to win the event at the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Games respectively. Now 39, the American was in Singapore to conduct a sprints and hurdles workshop for the Singapore Athletic Association (SAA) from November 26 to December 8, and he believes the Republic's sprinters have the ability to compete with the best. "Yes I do (believe they have the potential to make it on the world stage)," said Arnold. "I see some of the runners … one named (Lee) Cheng Wei and Gary (Yeo) that I met and both of them are extremely talented ... The ability is there, it's just technique. You can be a 10.3sec guy and change his technique, he will be 10.1 overnight." The California-native added: "No one has perfect technique. Usain Bolt doesn't have perfect technique, he does a lot of things wrong." "He is just maximising what he can do with his body but he hasn't reached his full potential because he still has some things he needs to fix. I think he can run 9.4, no problem," he said. Arnold was a top hurdler before an Achilles tendon injury ended his career prematurely in 2007. At the Super Grand Prix in Lausanne in July 2006, he clocked the world's second-fastest time of 12.9 to finish just behind China's Liu Xiang, who claimed gold in a then-world record of 12.88. The American hurdler's performance also bettered the 17-year-old US national standard of 12.92 set by two-time Olympic champion Roger Kingdom in 1989, and equalled twice by Allen Johnson seven years later. Now a full-time coach with collegiate and professional athletes, Arnold has also not ruled out working with Singapore's national men's 4x100m relay team of Lee, Yeo, Muhd Amirudin Jamal, Muhammad Elfi Mustapa and Calvin Kang. For now, Arnold hopes his old friend Liu, who had limped out of the 2008 Beijing Olympics with an Achilles injury, will return for the 2016 Olympics. "I had Achilles surgery so I know how it is; you never want to see an athlete go down like that," said the hurdling champion. "He's a reflection of what can happen in Asian athletics - anybody can do it. It's not a special few, it's the determined few. You've got to know you can do it."