Training troubles

Adding to the pressure on Zhang were stories that emerged in Melbourne concerning bizarre new training methods.

Top swimmer Qi Hui was made to live in low-oxygen conditions in a bid to improve her performance, but it backfired when she slumped to a 25th place finish in 200m medley.

Her time of two minutes and 19.05 seconds was 7.13 second slower than her gold winning time at the Doha Asian Games last December, and she attributed it to the training system.

"My form has been inconsistent since I started training with new methods," she said after the race. "My muscles was totally stiff and I just found that I dropped behind the other swimmers by half a body length at the beginning of the race."

Zhang was forced to take the blame for the fiasco: "It might have something to do with the new training methods."

Having watched Qi's misfortunes a number of swimmers have already spoken of their desire to train overseas.

"Our training methods have problems. I want to go abroad and get new training," Zhang Lin, who finished 6th in men's 200m freestyle, told newspaper Soccer News.

Zhang set a personal best but was in no mood to celebrate after being defeated by South Korea's Park Tae-hwan, who won bronze.

"Before Park went abroad to train with an Australian coach, we were almost neck and neck in the 200m. But now I'm lagging behind. He has improved mentally and physically after training overseas.

"I think China's swimming team should go abroad and learn something new from foreign coaches."

Zhang's point of view was echoed by teammates Yang Yu and Wu Peng.

"We're still at the same level while the world has developed very fast. I don't think the team prepared enough for the world championships," Yang told Soccer after her failure in the women's 200m freestyle heats.

Meanwhile Wu has confirmed that he will train in the US in May.

"I am looking forward to training with Phelps. I really want to learn something from him."

(China Daily 04/05/2007 page22)

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