Olympic champion Liu Xiang of China ran the 60-meter hurdles in 7.42 seconds Sunday at the Karlsruhe indoor meet to improve his own Asian record by .001 seconds.

Liu, an Olympic gold medalist who also holds the 110-meter hurdles world record, held off Dayron Robles by .002 seconds and avenged his loss to the Cuban last week in Stuttgart.

Marcus Brunson of the United States also ran 6.46 seconds in the 60 meters and Christian Olsson of Sweden made 17.44 meters in the triple jump.

Olympic long jump champion Tatyana Lebedeva of Russia continued her run of form with a jump at 6.68, with a slump from heptathlon world and Olympic champion Carolina Kluft who finished third in 6.52.

Many athletes are using these indoor events as practice, ahead of the European indoor championships to be held March 2-4 in Birmingham, England.

(China Daily February 12, 2007)