The father of an eight-year-old Chinese girl who ran 3,560 kms (2,212 miles) to Beijing to celebrate the 2008 Olympics yesterday denied accusations of child abuse.

Zhang Huimin arrived in Beijing on Sunday after she started her extraordinary odyssey on July 3 from Sanya, at the southern tip of the province of Hainan, with her father following on a motorised bicycle.

Huimin got up at 2.30 a.m. every day to train for the run, Xinhua news agency said, and would have had to have run about 65 kms a day for 55 days - the equivalent of about one-and-a-half marathons a day.

Domestic media and some experts accused the father, Zhang Jianmin, a businessman, of abuse, saying the Beijing run would damage the girl's body and affect her growth.

Zhang told Reuters he did not worry about his daughter's health.

"I don't care about what the experts say. Although they accuse me of being cruel or abusive, I think I'm right," he said.

"She is always healthy around me and never said her legs hurt or that she was tired after running 30 kilometres," Zhang told Reuters.

"I am suffering huge media pressure. But I have never worried about her future health."

Huimin started running three kilometres a day when she was three and was hitting 23 kilometres a day by the time she was seven.

Huimin herself appeared unfazed by the whole marathon event and the attention it had brought.

"I've liked running since I was very young," she said. "Running makes me happy."