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China Sends 36 Swimmers, Divers to World Championships
China announced here on Tuesday the list of a low-profile 70-member delegation for the world swimming championships slated for July 16-29 in Fukuoka, Japan.
Chinese athletes will only compete in three out of the five sports listed at the championships, fielding 13 swimmers, 13 divers and 10 synchronized swimmers. The other sports on the Fukuoka event's program are water polo and open water swimming.
The Chinese athletes are fairly young, averaging 19.5 years at age and most of them are to make world championships debut at Fukuoka.
Qi Hui, a 16-year-old swimmer from the Chinese army, clocked a world record time of two minutes 22.99 seconds in the women's 200 meters event at a national meeting in April this year. She clocked a world best mark of 2:13.09 for 200 meters individual medley at the Asian Games last May in Osaka.
Qi's teammate and breaststroke specialist Luo Xuejuan is now top-ranked in the world in the 50m event, with a time of 31.48 seconds and she is the world's third fastest swimmer this year so far in the 200m event.
Yang Yu and Chen Hua, other members of the women's team, are ranked second in the world for the 200m and 800m freestyle events respectively.
Chinese women's teams are top-ranked in the world for all the three relay events -- the 4x100m freestyle, 4x200m freestyle and 4x100m medley relays. Japanese teams followed in the freestyle relay events' world rankings while another Japanese team is ranked third in the world for the medley relay event. They know, however, that a tough challenge is waiting for them in Fukuoka.
The best male Chinese swimmer in the team is Ouyang Kunpeng, who is ranked 17th in the world for the 200m individual medley.
Among the Chinese divers for the Fukuoka event are Olympic champions from the Sydney Games Tian Liang for the men's platform and Sang Xue for the women's platform synchronized diving, and Olympic silver-medalists Guo Jingjing and Hu Jia.
With a best ever Chinese performance of a sixth place at world championships, the Chinese synchronized swimming team for Fukuoka is mainly composed of swimmers from the Beijing team, the national champions for many years running.
"Our main purpose is to have these young blood tested at world- class competitions like the world championships in Fukuoka," Li Hua, the Chinese chief-de-commission, said at a press conference here on Tuesday. "We have to prepare our teams for the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games," Li added.
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