China's former world and Olympic champion Liu Xiang took another step in his recovery from a career-threating injury yesterday by winning the 110 metres hurdles at the East Asian Games in Hong Kong.

Liu coasted to victory against a mediocre field in a time of 13.66 seconds, well behind the 12.88 he ran to set a world record in 2006 before a torn achilles forced him to limp out of the Beijing Olympics last year.

Cuba's Dayron Robles has since bettered the world record by one-hundreth of a second.

"My foot is good, there wasn't much problem, but it was a little sore," the 26-year-old Liu told reporters on the track, where his every move was cheered by a sell-out crowd of 3,500 people.

"It will definitely get slowly better... though I still have to protect my body a little more."

Liu, who finished second in an IAAF Golden Grand Prix in his home city of Shanghai in September before winning gold at last month's Asian athletics championships, said the 2012 London Olympics were one of his major goals but played down the chances of taking back the world record.

"I haven't even thought about breaking the world record, I don't have such hopes at all," said Liu.

"I have confidence in competing in London... it may be my last Olympics so I'd like to have a good finish (to my career)."