Top Hurdler Dayron Robles Signs China Protest Letter

It was already billed as the sporting contest of the Beijing Olympics, but the men's 110m hurdles has now gained a political edge after the world record holder, Dayron Robles, added his name to a campaign for peace in Tibet and respect for human rights throughout China.

The Cuban athlete - who is expected to go head to head with China's most famous athlete and reigning Olympic champion, Liu Xiang - was among 40 competitors who signed up to a letter issued by Amnesty International and the International Campaign for Tibet.

Coming on the eve of the opening ceremony, the inclusion of such a high-profile athlete in the letter to China's president, Hu Jintao, underlines the problems the hosts face in trying to keep politics out of one of the games.

Since breaking Liu's world record in June with a time of 12.87 seconds, Robles is the favorite for the 110m event.

But he will face a crowd of 81,000 fans at the Bird's Nest stadium, the vast majority of whom will be cheering for Liu, the first Chinese man to win an Olympic track gold.

Among the other signatories are the American 400m runner Dee Dee Trotter, a relay gold medalist in Athens in 2004, and the Croatian women's world high jump champion, Blanka Vlasic.

The letter calls on Hu "to enable a peaceful solution for the issue of Tibet and other conflicts in your country with respect to fundamental principles of human rights".

It asks the president to work towards freedom of expression, freedom of religion, an end to the death penalty and a halt to imprisonment of human rights defenders.

Calls to the German-based offices of Amnesty and International Campaign for Tibet, the groups that issued the letter, went unanswered.