China Regains Confidence in SwimmingChina has set a new world record and a national one at the China Swimming Championship, which was concluded on April 15. Qi Hui, Luo Xuejuan, Yang Yu have achieved very good results at the match, thus adding a spotlight for China's swimming cause which has been on a downhill trend in recent years.China is expected to achieve an upturn in 2004 and win gold medals at 2008 Olympics, said Li Hua, chairman of swimming center of the National Team. However, it is very strange that China can get very good results at National Sports Meeting, but quite the other way round at Olympics. The achievement at the match is quite normal, said Zhao Ge, chief coach of China's Swimming Team. It does not mean a lot for China's swimming career. As this is the year for National Sports Meeting, every team has worked harder in order to achieve good results and so the overall level has been raised. The athletes from national team perform very well this time, especially Qi Hui, Luo Xuejuan, Yang Yu and Xu Yanwei. Their achievements are also an indication of progress made by China in this aspect Qi Hui set a new world record in the women's 200 meters breaststroke and this has helped China to regain its confidence. Zhao said that we should pay attention to our shortcomings, but should not deny our merits either just because of the bad performance at Sydney Olympics. We should not be self-conceited over the small achievement, and China still has a large gap to fill up before she can catch up with the world's top swimming countries and we must not always compete with ourselves. Very few Chinese athletes can enter the world's top 50 and it is not realistic for China to achieve success in a short period. But it does not mean China has no ability to be on a par with the world's toppers. It is very important for us to know our shortcomings and merits. From the silver winner Huang Xiaomin in Barcelona in 1992 and Qi Hui's failure in getting medal in Sydney to this time she broke the world record, it shows that China's women breaststroke has for a long been a strong event. China can compete even with America, Australia and Holland and other top swimming countries. Women's 200 meters freestyle is a weak event in international swimming event. Although American swimmers win the gold medal at 4X200, but they only clocked 2 minutes at domestic match. Yang Yu clocked 1 minute 59 seconds, Xu Yanwei did 2 minutes and over 0 second. This shows that China has great potential in the event. China will regain the victory by making more efforts. By PD Online staff member Li Yan |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |