Grin, rise and shine

With 12 golds, nine silvers and six bronzes, Chinese swimmers got off to a good start at the 2008 Swimming China Open.

Zhang Lin (L) and Qi Hui are the main hopes for China's swimming team at the Beijing Olympic Games. [China Daily]

Although only a few top international swimmers turned up at the National Aquatics Center, the venue for the 2008 Olympic swimming events, a group of Chinese swimmers led by veteran Qi Hui are eying a comeback at the Beijing Games after years spent in low tide.

At the test event earlier this month, Qi claimed two gold medals in the women's 100m breaststroke and the 200m individual medley, and reached the final of the 200m breaststroke.

She also met the Olympic qualifying A standards for all the three events, which means that she has qualified for all three events at the Beijing Olympics.

"I have achieved my goal of swimming under the Olympic qualifying A standards in the three events, and two golds in hand made it better," said the 23-year-old Qi.

After winning the silver medal at the Asian Games at the age of 13, Qi reached the top world level soon in women's breaststroke.

At the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the 15-year-old Qi broke the world record in the 200m breaststroke semi-finals and finished fourth in the finals.

With the retirement of 2004 Olympic women's 100m breaststroke gold medalist Luo Xuejuan, Qi, who finished sixth at her favorite 200m breaststroke at Athens, was considered the biggest hope for the Chinese women's swimming team.

But an improper training method nearly ruined her preparation in the year ahead of the Beijing Games.

At the Melbourne Swimming Championships last March, Qi even failed to qualify for the finals in any of the events she took part in.

"The new training method was not suitable for my physical condition so it seemed that I could not swim last year and I didn't know what happened," she recalled. "I started to doubt my capability and it took me about four months to adjust my psychological condition and almost a year to find my physical form back in the pool."

The strong coming back at the Water Cube strengthened Qi's confidence. Although it has not been decided which event she will compete in at the Beijing Games, she has vowed to do better than in Athens.

"I'm still not in top form," Qi said. "I will train hard and confirm which events to compete at the Olympics after the national championships at the end of March. I hope I do better than at the previous two Olympic Games and I will try hard to find my best form."