World and Commonwealth 400metres champion Christine Ohuruogu says she will continue to run shorter distances to "improve her sharpness" ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

The Stratford-born athlete finished second in the European Cup 200m in France at the weekend to help Britain's women to third place behind Russia and Ukraine and she is not worried about her lack of practice in the one-lap race.

"There's no need to panic because I'm not doing the 400m," said Ohuruogu. "I didn't have the opportunity to do so last year [due to her ban for missed drugs tests].

"Every year I am trying to tweak things and over 400m that means getting the legs turning a bit earlier and getting sharper. I've got the strength but not the sharpness so that's what I'm working on."

Ohuruogu has already qualified for the 400m and will not run over that distance at next month's Olympic trials, choosing one of the sprints instead. Her Beijing rehearsal will come at the Grand Prix in Crystal Palace.

Meanwhile, a new survey forecasts Britain will win fewer medals in Beijing than they did in Athens four years ago.

This latest report, published by global accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, estimates a haul of 28 medals, two fewer than in 2004, and that Team Britain will finish ninth in the table behind Germany, France and Italy.

The PWC survey predicts China will use home advantage to shade the United States for the first time (88 to 87), with Russia third on 79 medals and Germany fourth with 43.

"As the host nation, and with an economy which has grown very strongly since 2004, the medal 'target' of 88 for China according to our model is much higher than its actual medal totals in Athens (63) or Sydney (59)," said the report's author John Hawksworth.

He predicts Australia will finish fifth with 41 medals, Japan sixth with 34, followed by France (30), Italy (29), Britain and South Korea (27).

The compilers of the report did not try to predict the performance of any individual athletes. Rather, they made a statistical model that took into account historical performance, political and economic factors, as well as a boost athletes from the home team always seem to enjoy.