Liu Xiang to face Dayron Robles in Doha

CHINA'S Liu Xiang will square off against sprint hurdles rival Dayron Robles in his first race of the year at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar in March.

DUEL IN DOHA: Liu Xiang will square off against Dayron Robles at World Indoor Championships in Qatar in March (Getty Images)

The 26-year-old, who won Olympic 110m gold at Athens 2004, returned to athletics from a lengthy foot injury last September, having been forced to forgo the chance to defend both his Olympic and world titles.

Liu hit the ground running however and captured gold at the Asian Athletics Championships and is the defending world indoor champion, having defeated the USA's Allen Johnson in Valencia in 2008.

But he will face stiff competition in the form of Robles, who claimed Olympic gold in Beijing and has won seven out of eight races on the European indoor circuit in 2008.

He also set a personal best of 7.33 seconds in Dusseldorf - 0.09 secs faster than that of Liu - and only 0.03 slower than Colin Jackson's world record.

The Cuban has also had his fair share of injury troubles however and pulled up in the semi-finals of last year's World Championships in Berlin as gold went to Ryan Brathwaite of Barbados.