The U.S. Olympic women's athletics coach predicted Wednesday that the country will have its strongest team ever at the Beijing Games.
And that's before she even knows who'll be on the team.
"This will be our best Olympic Games," coach Jeanette Bolden said, "because it will have a nice mixture of both the veteran athletes and the up-and-coming athletes."
The American Olympic trials begin Friday and end July 6, and the final roster will be announced July 13.
The United States topped the athletics medal table at the 2004 Athens Olympics with a total of 25. That was the country's largest haul since taking home 30 medals at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games.
When first pressed at a news conference to gauge how good the U.S. team will be in China, Bolden shied away from a direct answer, saying: "We want as many medals as possible _ as many as we can get."
Later, when asked whether the American squad potentially might be stronger than the group that competed in Athens, Bolden said she thinks it could be.
"You have athletes that are veterans that will make the team _ I anticipate will make the team _ that may have made the team before but may not have medaled. They're veterans now. They know what to expect. They know what to focus on," said Bolden, who coaches at UCLA.
"So I think in that sense we should do a lot better."
Among the American athletes who did not earn medals in 2004 but are expected to perform well in Beijing are sprinters Tyson Gay and Wallace Spearmon and pole vaulter Jenn Stuczynski. Medal winners from four years ago who figure to be back on the team include Allyson Felix, Sanya Richards and Jeremy Wariner.
The United States also led the medals table at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan, with 26.
And as for a specific target for Beijing?
"What we usually say is that our first goal is to stay on top of the medal table _ to remain the world's No. 1 track and field team," USA Track & Field director of communications Jill Geer said.
