Colour pictures of athletes fill the newspapers, sports writers pump out fulsome biographies and interviews with medal winners and television serves up a rich diet of Olympic programming, sweeping aside popular soap operas and game shows.

Every few minutes the Chinese national anthem rings out on one of the many state-run television channels along with yet another shot of China's red flag rising above a Greek stadium.

"Due to the five-hour time difference, millions of Chinese sports fans have to sit before their televisions sometimes until day almost breaks," said the China Daily newspaper on Tuesday.

"But each gold medal Chinese athletes win comes as a prize for our loud shouts of 'come on' from thousands of miles away."

China has one of the biggest teams at the Games, a total of 407 athletes. Many are household names at home.

Olympic programming is running almost round the clock on three stations run by China Central Television.

"Big gold medal harvest today. Another day for China at Athens Olympics" screamed a banner headline on the Xinhua news agency's Olympic Web site www.xinhuanet.com/olympic/index.htm after China won six golds on Monday.

Ambitions are high.

"Conservative estimates say we should win at least 20 golds, while some optimistic guesses put it at over 30 ... However, since China has one quarter of the world's population, we should be able to win even more than that," said one Xinhua commentary. China is the world's most populous nation with more than 1.3 billion people.

With more than a dozen golds still up for grabs in such traditionally strong events as table tennis, badminton and weightlifting, China's athletes have solid chances of surpassing the national goal of 20 golds.

They could even match the 28-gold haul gathered in at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

More sober voices are advising against hubris.