SPORTS> Team China
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SPORTS> Team China
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Chinese swimmers are sleepless in Doha
(SwimNews.com)
Updated: 2006-12-01 10:37 China's top swimmers have a tight turnaround in terms of acclimatising in time for the start of racing at the Asian Games in Doha on Friday: they landed in Qatar at 3am on Wednesday and at Thursday training Zhou Yafei, there to defend the 100m butterfly drown, said: "I am still tired from the jet lag, so I don't think my form is very good right now - but for me, it maybe good news because the best form should be reserved for competition." Her goal was to defend a title she won in Busan four years ago, and as Asian record holder - she clocked 58.32sec last September and sits at sixth in the world in 2006, ahead of teammate Xu Yanwei, on 58.73 and Japan's Yuko Nakanishi, on 58.93. Zhang Lin, 19, among the favourites in the 400, 800 and 1,500m freestyle, expressed similar sentiments to Zhou: "I have not adapted myself yet. But there is no rush. I can find my form when the competition comes." At 15 four years ago, Zhang finished 8th over 800m in Busan. His best time over 30 laps in 2004 was 15:27.90. He leapt to a 15:00.27 in 2005 and this year slipped back to 15:15.13 - so far. Wu Peng, the national butterfly champion, was also still shaking off jet-lag but was clear about why he had travelled to Doha: "I hope I can win the gold," said the 19-year-old who won three titles in Busan four years ago, namely the 200m backstroke, 200m butterfly and 400m medley. This time Wu will not race the long medley, which falls on day one, when he faces strong opposition from Japan. This year, Japanese occupy numbers 3, 4 8 and 9 on the world rankings, with 1:55.27 from Ryuichi Shibata, 1:56.20 from Takeshi Matsuda (Wu Peng is fifth at 1:56.46), 1:56.84 from Ryusuke Sakata and 1:56.84 from Olympic silver medallist Takashi Yamamoto. "Japanese swimmers are very strong opponents. I will not take any of them lightly but I am going to try my best to defend the title," said Wu. |
