China consolidates position in swimming at Shanghai worlds
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Xinhua, July 31, 2011
The host nation consolidated their position in swimming at the 14th FINA World Championships as they have already won four gold medals with one day left at the worlds on Saturday.
China pocketed four gold medals at the 2009 Rome World Championships and finished third after powerhouse the United States and Germany. This time in Shanghai, till Saturday night, the United States led the medal tally with 12 golds, and China was the second with four golds currently. The hosts are expecting one more title on Sunday's men's 1500m freestyle.
"The Chinese swimming team did a very good job this time and basically we achieved our goals, though some swimmers didn't perform their best," head coach Yao Zhengjie said in a press conference Saturday. "And we are very lucky that in some events we just won by little advantage."
"But comparing with the United States, we still need to improve in lots of aspects," said Yao, who had said their aim was to win four gold medals as they did in Rome two years ago before the Shanghai worlds.
"The organization and the support from the home crowd helped us a lot," said Yao, who still kept a low key toward the 2012 London Games. "However we are competing at home this time, and at London Olympic Games lots of things will be different."
The 19-year-old promising star Sun Yang is very eye-catching at the worlds as the freestyle specialist won the men's 800m free and took a silver in the 400m free after South Korean star swimmer Park Tae-hwan.
Sun, who was only 0.87 second off Grant Hackett's 2001 world record in the men's 1,500m freestyle at the Asian Games in last November, is expecting a gold and a new world record in 1500m free Sunday.
"If Sun performs well, he will possibly break the world record," Yao said. "But we consider the gold medal more important than a world record at big competitions like the worlds. Of course I hope he can break the record and win."
However Yao said if Sun wants to compete with Park at the London Games, he still need to improve in lots of aspects.
Yao especially praised 19-year-old Jiao Liuyang, winner of the 200m butterfly. "I'm very satisfied with Jiao. She just went back from World Military Games in Brazil and she was very tired. But she managed to win the 200m fly gold. It was not easy."
Jiao, runner-up of the event at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, led throughout the final to win the 200m fly gold in 2:05.55, while Olympic champion Liu Zige looked not in shape and only took a bronze, her only medal at the Shanghai worlds.
"There was some problems in Liu's training," explained Yao. "I talked with her coach and both of us think if the 200m fly is held one or two days later, Liu will swim much better. She's still making adjustment."
The 15-year-old Ye Shiwen and 20-year-old Zhao Jing snatched the women's 200m individual medley and 200m backstroke title respectively and both of them won the gold by a strong dash in the very last.
The women swimmers have always outshone the men swimmers in the past, but this time big progress could be seen in the Chinese men's swimming team.
Besides the good performance from Sun Yang, China took a historic bronze medal in the men's 4X200m freestyle relay, as the bronze was their first in the men's relay at World Championships.
"It is a big breakthrough," said the coach. "We take this medal even more precious than the individual events. The result was more than two seconds faster than their best. It means the improvement of the Chinese men's swimming."
"Our men swimmers have the same height with the foreign swimmers, and their experiences from training abroad also helped them a lot," Yao said.
The relay was led by 2009 Rome world champion Zhang Lin, who only took part in a relay at the worlds this time due to bad form.
Yao said:"I've been worrying about Zhang before the relay, but he seemed good. Zhang is still making adjustment and not in his best. But from his performance here we can see he has a strong mind and he is still a leader in the Chinese team. I think he's still very hopeful in London."
Chinese top swimmers like Zhang Lin, Sun Yang and Zhao Jing all have trained abroad and Yao said learning from foreign coaches helped a lot in their skills and strength.
"The swimming in China is still not that developed, so we hope more and more swimmers can get chances to train abroad," Yao said. "We do have good coaches in China, however learning some leading skills from foreign countries is also very important for us."
Talking about the London Olympic Games next year, Yao said: "The United States and Australia dominated swimming at the Beijing Olympic Games, but now we can see the progress made by European swimmers, like France, Germany and Britain," Yao said. "I think it will be hard for the United States to claim most of the gold at the London Games."
"We hope we can get better results in London than we did at the 2008 Beijing Games, which is our goal," Yao said.
The Shanghai worlds will lower its curtain on Sunday with the last seven swimming gold medals.
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