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China Enjoys Good Start in Swimming Heats
China, which handed the Asian dominance in swimming back to Japan at the Bangkok Asian Games, enjoyed a good start in the heats at the East Asian Games Monday morning.
Chinese swimmers had four best results out of five events.
Xu Yanwei clocked 55.85 seconds to lead a field of eight swimmers into the women's 100 meters freestyle.
Liu Yu also registered the best heat result in the men's 200 meters freestyle. The Chinese women's 4X200m freestyle relay quartet and Liu Yin, a 400m individual medley swimmer, will also start from lane four in this afternoon's finals as they have the best entry results.
But the results of the finals could be quite different from those in the heats. Japan is obviously stronger in the men's events though their swimmers only registered one best result in the morning heats.
As in the women's competitions, China and Japan are expected to have a fierce contest for the gold medals on offer with China slightly on the upperhand.
China dominated Asian pool for 10 years after overwhelming Japan in medal table at the 1988 Asian swimming championships. But Japan won back the leadership at the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games.
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