Just less than a month after National Games (NG), Asian indoor games and Asian track and field championships (AC) were held in Asia. Here is the comparison of the results of Chinese athletes between NG and AC. Only the athletes competing in AC are listed accompanied with their NG results:
NG/AC
M100m
Zhang Peimeng: 10.32 (2nd)/10.28 (1st)
Guo Fan: 10.41 (3rd)/10.37 (3rd)
NG champion: Lu Bin 10.27
Both ran slightly faster than NG. Hope Zhang will take down the NR soon.
M200m
Wang Chengliang: 21.00 (4th)/21.54(p), 21.61(sf)
Liang Jiahong: 21.26 (7th)/22.79(h)
NG champion: Li Mingxuan 20.79
Both below par
M400m
Liu Xiaosheng: 46.02 (1st)/46.17 (2nd, h), 46.55 (1st)
Zhou Jie (ZJ): 48.88 (16th,h)/48.28 (15th,h)
Liu maintained his form pretty well
M800m
Li Xiangyu: 1:49.19 (1st)/1:58.30 (18th, last in heat)
Xia Xiudong (ZJ): 1:50.39 (3rd)/1:52.61 (10th, heat)
Both were top 3 in NG but did terrrible in AC.
M1500m
Yu Zhiyang (FJ): 3:47.77 (10th)/ 3:47.58 (8th,h), 3:49.48 (6th)
Zhang Guolin (SD): 3:48.65 (11th)/3:47.53 (5th,h), 3:52.41 (8th)
NG champion: Sun Wenli 3:44.98
Both did better than NG
M5000m
Tian Mengxu (HN): 13:39.53 (2nd)/14:09.70 (5th)
Yang Dinghong (PLA): 13:50.43 (9th)/14:18.00 (7th)
NG champion: Lin Xiangqian 13:38.77
Below par
M 10000m
Dong Guojian (YN): 28:17.60 (2nd)/29:13.44 (5th)
Cheng Tao (SD): 29:36.80 (10th)/29:38.74 (7th)
NG champion: Tian Mengxu 28:15.06
Below par, but both men's 000 and 10000m runners have shown great improvement in the last 2 years. The time is improving. Hopefully, 1st sub-28:00 mark will come shortly.
M3000m steeplechase
Lin Xiangqian: 8:27.14 (2nd)/8:34.13 (2nd)
Yang Le (Inner Mongolia): 8:46.69 (6th)/ 8:50.58 (7th)
NG champion: Sun Wenli 8:25.11
Lin is the only few who dares to challenge the former Africans. It is the 2nd major challenge after 2006 AG when he led all his way in most of the race and finished 3rd at the end.
M110mh
Liu Xiang: 13.34 (1st)/13.50 (1st)
Shi Dongpeng: 13.63 (3rd)/13.67 (2nd)
Liu and Shi are always Asian top 110m hurdler
M400mh
Chen Dayu: 51.28 (4th)/ 52.61 (9th, h)
NG champion: Meng Yan 50.04
Chen is still inexperienced.
MHJ
Huang Haiqiang: 2.23m (3rd)/2.23m (2nd)
Chen Cheng: 2.20m (4th)/2.05m (12th)
NG champion: Zhang Shufeng 2.28m
Huang still has not regained his 2006 form (2.32m).
MLJ
Li Jinzhe: 8.18m (2nd)/8.16m (1st)
Yu Zhenwei (PLA): 7.80m (8th)/7.96m (3rd)
NG champion: Zhang Xiaoyi 8.27m
Another consistent performance for Li who has been jumping 8m++ on many occasions this year including recent world champ. Yu also showed his usual near 8m jump.
MTJ
Zhu Shujing: 17.41m (2nd)/16.67m (2nd)
NG champion: Li Yanxi 17.59m
With injuries, it's hard to get Zhu to repeat his 17.4m jump this time.
MPV
Liu Feiliang: 5.60m (1st)/5.60m (1st)
Yang Quan: 5.60m (2nd)/5.45m (2nd)
Liu requested 5.80m in NG and AC. His focus is no longer mediocre 5.50-5.70 region. Maybe too ambigious at the moment. Yang is still not very consistent.
MSP
Guo Yanxiang: 19.11m (2nd)/19.07m (4th)
Zhang Jun: 17.78m (10th)/19.15m (3rd)
NG champion: Jia Peng 19.20m
Zhang has been the domestic leader this year but did terribly in NG (due to the pressure from the authorities, probably) and came back strong with a 19m++ throw. Guo did exactly what he can perform in the competition.
MHT
Ma Liang: 71.01 (1st)/ 70.08 (3rd)
Qi Dakai: 70.77 (2nd)/65.60m (8th)
Ma has been a 74m thrower once so 70m is not too bad but it is still tough for these chinese throwers to compete with the Asian best.
MDT
Wu Tao: 51.58 (13th)/59.27 (3rd)
Wu Jian: 60.07 (2nd)/NM
NG champion: Li Shaojie 60.39m
A falling event for China with Iranian dominating with 64m++ throw. 59-61m no longer can win Asian title for Chinese throwers.
MJT
Wang Qingbo: 78.73m (3rd)/80.25m (2nd)
Qin Qiang: 77.45m (4th)/80.08m (3rd)
NG champion: Chen Qi 79.57m
WC bronze medalist Murakami won the event with ease but these Chinese throwers really raised up the bar to challenge a little. It's also the 1st 80m throw for Wang. Both did far better than NG. Hope still exists in AG next year.
M20km walk
Li Jianbo: 1:19:10 (2nd)/1:22:55 (1st)
Chu Yafei: 1:20:27 (3rd)/1:22:56 (2nd)
NG champion: Wang Hao 1:18:13
Li and Chu have been the no.2 and 3 in China so it's not surprised they won. The times were considered good.
M Dec
Zhu Hengjun: 7708 (3rd)/7200 (3rd)
Liu Haibo: 7427 (4th)/DNF
Zhu still comes short to be a strong contender in Asia. Liu seems to have one strong discipline: high jump (2.12m) and I don't know when he will improve in others.
W100m
Tao Yujia: 11.68 (3rd)/11.63 (4th)
Chen Jue: 11.51 (2nd)/11.78 (6th)
NG champion: Jiang Lan 11.50
Tao still has a lot to improve in her mid race. She has a great start but always fades in the middle.
W200m
Jiang Lan: 23.48 (2nd)/23.65 (3rd)
Lai Weijie: 23.81 (4th)/24.08 (5th)
NG champion: Chen Jue 23.45
Both did slightly slower
W400m
Chen Lin: 52.96 (2nd)/53.55 (2nd)
Tang Xiaoyin: 53.39 (4th)/ 54.10 (6th)
NG champion: Huang Xiaoxiao 52.23
A weak event and Chinese 400m runners are getting slower.
W800m
Zhou Haiyan: 2:3.00 (1st)/2:04.89 (1st)
Liu Qing: 2:05.50 (4th)/2:05.62 (1st, h), 2:07.36 (5th)
Zhou still has a lot to prove after NG and AC champion although she wants to be next "Liu Xiang" in women 800m. Liu, after winning NG titles 4 years ago, has not improved by 0.01s for last 4 years, is finally doomed to fail in both NG and AC.
W1500m
Liu Fang: 4:18.62 (4th)/4:33.35 (2nd)
Zhou Haiyang: -/4:32.74 (1st)
NG Champion: Xue Fei 4:18.26
Liu has been a consistent 4:13-4:15 runner but it's still not very optimistic for her to excel, even at Asian level.
W5000m
Xue Fei: 15:11.72 (1st)/16:05.19 (1st)
Xue did not improve since 2007 at 15:02. If she is still comfortable with her 15:10-15:20 pace, she will no longer be able to challenge the world best.
W10000m
Bai Xue: 31:17.62 (1st)
Wang Jiali: 33:14.68 (11th)
Bai is still shadowed by the controversy of her coach so her future is still a uncertainty although she is determined to win more next year and to be in London. Wang should be more comfortable to stick around in the domestic scene.
W100mh
Sun Yawei: 13.17 (2nd)/13.19 (1st)
NG champion: Liu Jing 13.15
Sun is a vet student who has been complimented by Liu Xiang's coach, Sun Haiping. A lot to do to help her excel. Like her senior in Jiangsu province, Su Yiping, peaked at 12.9 form and ran 12.70 once at wind-aided condition. Unless her training method can be refined, Sun would still be a 12 high and 13 low hurdler.
W400mh
Yang Qi: 56.83 (3rd)/59.62 (4th)
NG champion: Huang Xiaoxiao 55.49
Still very young runner from Sichuan who does both 400m hurdler and 800m which I don't see it very often in China.
WLJ
Chen Yaling: 6.58m (2nd)/6.28m (2nd)
Bao sha: 5.88m (17th, h)/DNS
NG chempion: Lu Minjia (ZJ) 6.74m
Damn it, Chen. She did heaps of 6.5 and her best was only 6.62m. Being a 25yo, there is not much time she can catch up. Bao did quite well in the 1st half of 2009 but faded in the NG terribly. Lu won the NG at 6.74m which is the longest for 4 years. Hope she is not just a one-jump winner.
WTJ
Xu Tingting: 13.69m (5th)/14.11m (2nd)
NG champion: Chen Yufei (SD) 14.11m
Xu equaled the winning mark in NG. She will do better next year.
WHJ
Zheng Xingjuan: 1.95m (1st)/1.93m (1st)
Gu Xuan (PLA): 1.88m (3rd)/
Finally, Zheng won her 1st Asian champion at 1.93m. Not sure if this year is her final breakthrough (hopefully not) but she really carries the women's high jump for China.
WPV
Li Caixia: 4.40m (2nd)/4.30m (1st)
Wu Sha: 4.40m (1st)/4.15m (2nd)
Still looking for the 2nd 4.50m candidate after Gao Shuying. Bunch of 4.4 vaulters have emerged but the space and time seem to stop there. Wu has been at 4.30m back in 2004 or 2005 but only improved to 4.40m this year. What's wrong with her training?
WSP
Gong Lijiao 20.35m (1st)/19.04m (1st)
Liu Xiaorong 18.41m (4th)/17.55 (2nd)
Gong demonstrated her consistency in 2009 and won bronze in world champ. she is now a 20m thrower.
WJT
Liu Chunhua 60.65m (1st)/57.93m (1st)
Li Lingwei 55.72 (7th)/55.13m (2nd)
A bunch of comet-like throwers have been streaking across the sky but there are no consistent one. From Xue Juan to Chang Chunfeng, no Asian game title has been won since 1994.
WHT
Zhang Wenxiu 74.25m (1st)/72.07 (1st)
Hao Shuai 67.63m (2nd)/65.87m (2nd)
Zhang is undisputedly no. 1 HT in Asia but it seems that she has not been able to improve since 2007. Now, WR is at 77-78 region and Zhang is still at 74-75m.
WDT
Song Aimin 65.44m (2nd)/63.90m (1st)
Ma Xuejun 60.64m (4th)/63.63 (2nd)
Song still showed her experience is important with last throw getting past Ma's leading mark.
W20km walk
Liu Hong: 1:28:11 (1st)/DQ
Yang Yawei: 1:31:11 (5th)/1:34:11 (2nd)
Except Liu, more walkers should step up or Japanese walkers will eat away the pie.
W hep
Mei Yiduo 5689 (1st)/5460 (3rd)
Sun Lu 5363 (3rd)/4963 (4th)
Another unimproving event. The NG winning score has been getting lower and lower.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Exciting! Disappointment! track and field in Chinese national games
11th Chinese National Games (CNY) finally drew the curtains in Jinan. Most of the track and field results were quite normal, except for a few... There was no WRs from Ma's army or Li Xuemei's 10.79s in women's 100m. If you really want me to pick which result is the most suspicious, it could be the women's discus (although I don't think so). Li Yanfeng, from Heilongjiang province, threw a 66.40m to make no. 1 in the world this year. I would say Li is a consistent 60m++ thrower (for 9 straight seasons) and she already did 64m thrower a few years back. However, she was suffered from injuries for the last few years but she was still a finalist in Olympics last year. I still remembered in one media report about 2 years ago that she said she was so excited with the training camp in Germany although her injuries had not been cleared and she could not give up such good opportunities. Finally, her efforts paid off. She is now 30 years old and thrower normally has a very long career like Sadova, who I think is over 40 is still throwing. Nowadays, China seems to have a little more experience on prolonging athletes' career. Don't forget, World cup bronze medalist and mutiple WC and Olympic finalist, Song Aimin is at 31 and still going strong. Song threw 65.44m this time for 2nd place.
Disappointment... Wang Jing from Fujian province... I don't want to believe it. 11.50s, a very modest women's 100m winning time was caused by steroid. I can't believe it. She was the only B-qualifier in last year Olympics and she was only 20 years old by the time. A girl from Fujian province toppled the dominance from the tradional strong provinces like Jiangsu province was once a wonder girl and has been top 8 in the last 2 years together with Jiangsu's Jiang Lan, Qin Wangping and Chen Jue, and also Jiangxi's Tao Yujia. They all have different styles of techniques and although their times wander between 11.4 and 11.6, these at least reflect a more realistic picture in current women's sprinting in China. Wang was on 11.42s last year and 11.43 last month and she won the sprining queen in national games at 11.50s. Then she was pulled away by the official when she was doing her preparation a few minutes before women's 200m final. By then, no one knew why she was pulled out, even her team mate, Huang Jingju. The next day, her news broke out. Although I don't want to believe, this has become an irreversible truth. The reason I don't want to believe is because she was not running some stunning time like 10.9 or 10.6 and she barely won the event at 11.50...
Veterans still in the field
Li Shaojie and Liu Jing, also Li Rongxiang
Li Shaojie, at 34, won his 1st national games title in men's discus in 1993(!!) and competed 5 editions bagging 4 golds and 1 silver (1997) including this edition. He still holds NR at 65.16m
Liu Jing, at 32, won her 2nd consecutive national games titles in women's 100m hurdle to end her career at a full note. She was runner-up in 1997 at 12.76s and did not compete in 2001.
Li Rongxiang, at 37, won national games twice in 2001 and 2005 and held the national record at 84.29m and national junior record. all the young throwers in the field respect him a lot and address him "brother xiang". He finished 16th.
Excitment
28-year-old NR and 14-year-old AR of men's triple jump were broken on the last day of the competition. This time, 2 jumpers did the feat on the same occasion to beat the oldest NR in Chinese track and field. NR and AR stood at 17.34m and 17.35m, respectively. The original record holder, Zou Zhenxian set the old record in 1981 and since then, there have been so many attempts for the record but ended up in vain. Zou, himself, is also worried about this and started organizing "Zou Zhenxian Challenge" every year from 2000 and hoped the young jumpers one day can jump past his what they called "a record of old mustache". I think this really did something and there have been more than 5 17m-jumpers over the last 9 years including Sichuan's Gu Junjie, Shandong's Zhong Minwei, Hunan's Wu Bo, Zhejiang's Zhu Shujing, Hebei's Wu Ji, Li Yanxi and Cao Shuo. Finally, Li who has been very consistent for the last few years broke the dusty "spell" at 17.59m on his 4th attempt. Zhu Shujing, also trained with Li did 17.41m to surpass the old record. It appears to me a compensation for a long wait of the new record. I was impressed by Li since 2005 (2006?) when he jumped 17.15m outside China in Eugene (Reebok GP, I guess). In 2006 Asian Games in Doha, I followed the real time results and he only managed to overtake the leader on his last attempt, also an only 17m++ jump, to win the gold. In 2008 Olympics, he jumped 17.30m in the heats but only managed sub-17m jumps in the final. He went one step further in recent world champ. when he did 17.27m in heats and 17.23m in final to finish 6th. Finally, he did 17.59m.
The 2nd excitment is Gong Lijiao's 20.35m in women's shot put. Gong is coached by Li Meisu who is still the AR holder with 21.76m since 1988. Li only ended his career in 2001. Before Gong, Li has coached Li Meiju, the world indoor bronze medalist from last year who has been among the top throwers in the world. Gong's 20.35 is the only 20m++ from China since 1997. Last year was her breakout year when she finished 4th in Olympics and she stepped up to bronze in recent world championships. Both Li Yanxi and Gong Lijiao have traceable trails leading up to the results this time and I hope they can keep up with good work
Others: Zheng Xingjuan won women's high jump at 1.95m which has been the best result for the last 10 years. She has been the top jumper since 2006 and did not improve much over the years wandering 1.90-1.93m region. Zheng's next goal will be the NR at 1.97 set by Jin Ling, a record more than 20 years. Liu Xiang won 110m hurdle at 13.34, the 2nd race after his comeback and this has been his 3rd victory in national games since 2001. I want to downplay a little on Liu Xiang because I got really sick of how Chinese media heavily focuses on Liu. When I watched the National Games in CCTV5, they spent so much time spying on him a few hours before the race when he just did his stretching, jumping and putting on clothes or gloves and there was really nothing important to see. I think this kind of things will be getting more ridiculous once he starts racing more. I am not against Liu, honestly. I noticed him since 2000 world junior champ. when he finished 4th and 2001 National GP when he was 18 years old, beat Chen Yanhao (who is Asia no. 1 before Liu's rise) and broke the Asian junior record at 13.32. He also set 13.12 World junior record in Zurich the next year. He achieved so much but I think the hype is just too overwhelming in China and they can't cope it well. Especially when he pulled out from Olympics, all the negative comments surfaced regardless of the breakthroughs he had made for this event. Huang Xiaoxiao, two-time fifth placer in world champ. in women's 400m hurdle, unfortunately raced an hour before Liu and said after winning that today does not just belong to Liu Xiang but also all the finalists in women's 400m hurdle. Well-said.
Disappointment... Wang Jing from Fujian province... I don't want to believe it. 11.50s, a very modest women's 100m winning time was caused by steroid. I can't believe it. She was the only B-qualifier in last year Olympics and she was only 20 years old by the time. A girl from Fujian province toppled the dominance from the tradional strong provinces like Jiangsu province was once a wonder girl and has been top 8 in the last 2 years together with Jiangsu's Jiang Lan, Qin Wangping and Chen Jue, and also Jiangxi's Tao Yujia. They all have different styles of techniques and although their times wander between 11.4 and 11.6, these at least reflect a more realistic picture in current women's sprinting in China. Wang was on 11.42s last year and 11.43 last month and she won the sprining queen in national games at 11.50s. Then she was pulled away by the official when she was doing her preparation a few minutes before women's 200m final. By then, no one knew why she was pulled out, even her team mate, Huang Jingju. The next day, her news broke out. Although I don't want to believe, this has become an irreversible truth. The reason I don't want to believe is because she was not running some stunning time like 10.9 or 10.6 and she barely won the event at 11.50...
Veterans still in the field
Li Shaojie and Liu Jing, also Li Rongxiang
Li Shaojie, at 34, won his 1st national games title in men's discus in 1993(!!) and competed 5 editions bagging 4 golds and 1 silver (1997) including this edition. He still holds NR at 65.16m
Liu Jing, at 32, won her 2nd consecutive national games titles in women's 100m hurdle to end her career at a full note. She was runner-up in 1997 at 12.76s and did not compete in 2001.
Li Rongxiang, at 37, won national games twice in 2001 and 2005 and held the national record at 84.29m and national junior record. all the young throwers in the field respect him a lot and address him "brother xiang". He finished 16th.
Excitment
28-year-old NR and 14-year-old AR of men's triple jump were broken on the last day of the competition. This time, 2 jumpers did the feat on the same occasion to beat the oldest NR in Chinese track and field. NR and AR stood at 17.34m and 17.35m, respectively. The original record holder, Zou Zhenxian set the old record in 1981 and since then, there have been so many attempts for the record but ended up in vain. Zou, himself, is also worried about this and started organizing "Zou Zhenxian Challenge" every year from 2000 and hoped the young jumpers one day can jump past his what they called "a record of old mustache". I think this really did something and there have been more than 5 17m-jumpers over the last 9 years including Sichuan's Gu Junjie, Shandong's Zhong Minwei, Hunan's Wu Bo, Zhejiang's Zhu Shujing, Hebei's Wu Ji, Li Yanxi and Cao Shuo. Finally, Li who has been very consistent for the last few years broke the dusty "spell" at 17.59m on his 4th attempt. Zhu Shujing, also trained with Li did 17.41m to surpass the old record. It appears to me a compensation for a long wait of the new record. I was impressed by Li since 2005 (2006?) when he jumped 17.15m outside China in Eugene (Reebok GP, I guess). In 2006 Asian Games in Doha, I followed the real time results and he only managed to overtake the leader on his last attempt, also an only 17m++ jump, to win the gold. In 2008 Olympics, he jumped 17.30m in the heats but only managed sub-17m jumps in the final. He went one step further in recent world champ. when he did 17.27m in heats and 17.23m in final to finish 6th. Finally, he did 17.59m.
The 2nd excitment is Gong Lijiao's 20.35m in women's shot put. Gong is coached by Li Meisu who is still the AR holder with 21.76m since 1988. Li only ended his career in 2001. Before Gong, Li has coached Li Meiju, the world indoor bronze medalist from last year who has been among the top throwers in the world. Gong's 20.35 is the only 20m++ from China since 1997. Last year was her breakout year when she finished 4th in Olympics and she stepped up to bronze in recent world championships. Both Li Yanxi and Gong Lijiao have traceable trails leading up to the results this time and I hope they can keep up with good work
Others: Zheng Xingjuan won women's high jump at 1.95m which has been the best result for the last 10 years. She has been the top jumper since 2006 and did not improve much over the years wandering 1.90-1.93m region. Zheng's next goal will be the NR at 1.97 set by Jin Ling, a record more than 20 years. Liu Xiang won 110m hurdle at 13.34, the 2nd race after his comeback and this has been his 3rd victory in national games since 2001. I want to downplay a little on Liu Xiang because I got really sick of how Chinese media heavily focuses on Liu. When I watched the National Games in CCTV5, they spent so much time spying on him a few hours before the race when he just did his stretching, jumping and putting on clothes or gloves and there was really nothing important to see. I think this kind of things will be getting more ridiculous once he starts racing more. I am not against Liu, honestly. I noticed him since 2000 world junior champ. when he finished 4th and 2001 National GP when he was 18 years old, beat Chen Yanhao (who is Asia no. 1 before Liu's rise) and broke the Asian junior record at 13.32. He also set 13.12 World junior record in Zurich the next year. He achieved so much but I think the hype is just too overwhelming in China and they can't cope it well. Especially when he pulled out from Olympics, all the negative comments surfaced regardless of the breakthroughs he had made for this event. Huang Xiaoxiao, two-time fifth placer in world champ. in women's 400m hurdle, unfortunately raced an hour before Liu and said after winning that today does not just belong to Liu Xiang but also all the finalists in women's 400m hurdle. Well-said.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Chinese national championships: after 3 days, 2 Asian records have been broken
Before the great "national games" to be held in Jinan, Shandong Province, the last 3 days of Chinese summer national championships already witnessed 2 Asian records and heaps of fast times but most of them were produced by technology-enhanced suits ("tech-aid suit" to be used below). Men's 50m free AR was broken again by Shi Runqiang at 21.95s in Blueseventy suit, as reported in the Chinese media. He already did 22.24 in April and then 22.13 in June breaking Yamanoi's 22.18s-AR and Cai Li's 22.19-NR. Shi was 22.48 last year and this year, he leapt to be the 1st Asian men to swim below 22.0s. Anyway, the suit's aid cannot be denied. We will see what time he will swim soon when no tech-aid suit is allowed.
The 2nd AR broken was Luo Xuejuan's winning time in women's 100m breaststroke at 2004 Athen Olympics and after so many Chinese breaststrokers has been rising recently, Ji Liping is finally capturing the record in 1:05.32, 1:32s faster than Luo's previous record. Ji has been 3rd in 2005 national games and 1:08.61 swimmer in 2006 and won 50m breaststroke in Asian Games in the same year. She was 9th in 50m breastroke semifinal in 2007 Melbourne World Championships but she lost her form since and managed only 1:09.96 and 1:09.65 in the past 2 years. This year, she showed sign of her comeback, getting second place at spring national championships in April with 1:07.29 and now, she became AR holder and 4th in all time (behind Jones, Hardy and Sony). Currently, Ji Liping is under the training of British coach David Lyles in Shanghai team and Ji said after her win that David helped her re-believe herself after a 2-year setback. Ji swam in Jaked and it will be the last time for Chinese swimmers to swim in tech-aid suits since Chinese swimming Asscociation (CSA) has banned the use of these suits in the upcoming national games and how fast Ji can swim in normal suit will be found out soon.
One interesting thing is that when the chinese team competed in the world championships in Roma last month, a lot of coaches helped their provincial swimmers purchase tech-aid suits like Jaked for the national games and it seemed like they spent a lot of money on that. Recently, CSA banned the suits in national games which i think it is a good thing since I guessed not every provincial team has the wealth like Shanghai team to get so many suits. Therefore, this national championships would be their last display of their Roma fashion.
The 2nd AR broken was Luo Xuejuan's winning time in women's 100m breaststroke at 2004 Athen Olympics and after so many Chinese breaststrokers has been rising recently, Ji Liping is finally capturing the record in 1:05.32, 1:32s faster than Luo's previous record. Ji has been 3rd in 2005 national games and 1:08.61 swimmer in 2006 and won 50m breaststroke in Asian Games in the same year. She was 9th in 50m breastroke semifinal in 2007 Melbourne World Championships but she lost her form since and managed only 1:09.96 and 1:09.65 in the past 2 years. This year, she showed sign of her comeback, getting second place at spring national championships in April with 1:07.29 and now, she became AR holder and 4th in all time (behind Jones, Hardy and Sony). Currently, Ji Liping is under the training of British coach David Lyles in Shanghai team and Ji said after her win that David helped her re-believe herself after a 2-year setback. Ji swam in Jaked and it will be the last time for Chinese swimmers to swim in tech-aid suits since Chinese swimming Asscociation (CSA) has banned the use of these suits in the upcoming national games and how fast Ji can swim in normal suit will be found out soon.
One interesting thing is that when the chinese team competed in the world championships in Roma last month, a lot of coaches helped their provincial swimmers purchase tech-aid suits like Jaked for the national games and it seemed like they spent a lot of money on that. Recently, CSA banned the suits in national games which i think it is a good thing since I guessed not every provincial team has the wealth like Shanghai team to get so many suits. Therefore, this national championships would be their last display of their Roma fashion.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Surprising Chinese run in Swimming world Championships in Roma 2009
It comes the last day of swimming competition. It took all by surprise (including me) that Chinese team did so much better this time, a year that notorious Chinese National Games will be held in Shandong Province in a couple of months. Up to this point, Chinese team won 4 golds, 2 silvers and 3 bronze (9 overall) compared to 1 silver and 1 bronze in last edition and 1 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze in Beijing. The new generation of Chinese swimmers really have no fear against the world best this time since they know they are up for the challenge and they did it.
After the wins, it is one of the typical moments the Western swimming society had doubts on the results. This time, they add one more thing: suit. There are a lot of communication problems between China and the rest of the world which may always make Chinese swimming remain a secret operation. Chinese media actually is in general poorly informative in swimming event especially after Chinese swimming no longer medal well in major competitions. Like Athletics, the whole athletics page in Chinese sports website is delidicated to Liu Xiang. They only chase and analyze a little more for those who can medal. They don't care enough. Without solid base of media in China dedicated to Chinese swimming, all my information in the domestic competitions is gathered from fragments of reports in the provincial or general sports websites in China. If this is so, how can the Western swimming fans or media know more about them. Unlikely. Everytime when they medal and one of the swimmers did well, they would say xxx coming out from no where or xxx last year is on (this time) and the time drop this year is xxx which is too dramatic to believe if it is true. One thing I noticed such a miscommunications is from swimnews.com who reported the girl who received the bronze medal on behalf of Gao Chang in women's 50m back is Zhu Qianwei and he sensed something fishy about this since he mentioned same situation happened in 1994. According to reports in China, Gao's absence was due to a slight delay in urine testing which the organizer could not wait for her to start the medal ceremony. Since China also won the 4x200m free relay and the medal ceremony was followed by the women's 50m back, the quartet from China was also waiting in the scene. Italian organizer just picked a random Chinese girl from the quartet and the "lucky girl" was Liu Jing (not Zhu as reported). After the ceremony, Gao Chang came back and joined the medalists. Furthermore, when the WRs were punched like a paper puncher after the introduction of suits like LZR, Craig Lord, a dedicated swimnews.com reporter had a lot of reports on how the all time lists have been affecting. One time, he listed out the women's 400m IM list and put a note next to Chen Yan and Wu Yanyan something like "positive in subsequent drug test". Poor Chen who may be mistaken for the other Chen Yan, once a top national backstroker in late 1990s from Jiangsu province and test positive for steriod in 1999. I pointed out to him by email and he insisted he is right so nothing I can do for the clarification. Her under-par performance after 1998 was mainly due to intensive training that caused her stomach problems and shoulder injuries. After 2000 Olympics, she rested totally without any competition and managed to put out some great performance at the end of 2001 in national Games. She chose to retire since she did not want to train under the national team which may worsen her conditions. One more thing on the confusion of the names is from swiminfo when there is a dedicated statistician who made a lot of errors in the performances from China in the all time list. Like Zhao Jing in backstroke, you also can find her early performance under different person's name like Jin Zhao. The other funny one is Xutian Longzi. This kind of "double surname " like "Xu+tian" is getting popular nowadays. In the list, they have Xu tianlongzi and Longzi Xutian. It is kinda funny but this is the barrier that it is hard to break between China and the Western world.
I think later more and more people will say things on Chen Huijia's 1:04 leg in 4x100 medley relay since she only swam 1:07.2 in semifinal of 100m breastroke finishing 12th. This is already her pb. Chen has already been in the domestic scene quite some time. She is a 1:09 swimmer since 2005 and improved to 1:08.13 last year winning the Olympic trial. She made it to the semi final. She also competed in world champ 2007 as well. She is always more like a sprinter since she normally comes out very fast in the 1st 50m swimming 31 low or 30 high but her endurance was not so impressive. Her pb in 200m breast was 2:30 before Roma world champ but she did a 2:26 in heats this time which I think it is a good sign for the endurance part. 2:26, is not quite good enough nowadays to make the last 16 but I saw it and think she is still in a pretty good shape after 100m. In the heats of medley relay, she did 1:05 which surprised me since before the race, I think the breaststroke and free will be wildcards for China and they are kinda unpredictable. What I mean is it could be weak compared to other top teams and it can be really competitive that at least they can hold off those stronger opponents. I cannot imagine Chen swam 1:04.12, the fastest split among all breastrokers. Last year, she did not make to the final of individual event so Chinese team picked the finalist, Sun Ye who did 1:07 split which was like 2-3 seconds behind the great Jones. This time, Chen really stepped up and recovered the loss of Luo Xuejuan, who retired prematurely due to her heart condition. It is noted that both Luo and Chen are in the same provincial team and they know how to produce fine breastrokers. I believe Chen already has 1:06 in her but with the suit, the improvement is doubled. For Chen, this swim could be one of the times and platform for her to gain more confidence in herself.
Probably, people will still think Chinese are cheaters on (1) drug issue: Scandals in 1994 and 1998 together with Wu Yanyan in 2000 and Ouyang Kunpeng in 2008 are still lingering deep down in the swimming world. I am with you and always be alert. Once caught, no matter swimmers from China or other countries, they normally denied using drugs deliberately (who would?) and may put out some typical explanations like misusing some kinds of flu medicine or supplements (Hardy's case) or having barbaque (for Ouyang's case and Zhou Jie's case in 2005) or even mis-drinking mineral water doped by their rivals or admirers. Who knows if they are saying the truth? I think it is a good thing to store the athletes' samples for later test once any new technique is invented. I think some of the Olympic medalists from last year were busted this way. Although international swimming society has seen the efforts from China on drug problem, the low level of infomation exchange due to language barrier (attributing to low circulation of translated swimming news from China) does no good to make their swimmers known to the world swimming. This situation will continue; (2) Suit issue: I think all swimmers who medalled are wearing technology-assisted suits. No matter it is LZR, hydrofoil, Arena X-glide and Jaked01, swimmers get the extra assistance and the difference is the extent the suit can help one swimmer. If it is so strict, all swimmers in the field are cheaters and non-cheaters (or suckers) are those who still wear fabric brief. No matter it is a swimming world or business world, people definitely would do something "legal" to get the edge over their opponents. It is more than normal. When there are people involved, it is hard to keep it innocent like a glass of pure water. The drug is one thing and the suit is the other. People may think Craig Lord is cynical but I think he is more like a watchdog trying to keep the pool from the impurities. I think it is a good thing. Probably, there will be other thing that puts the world swimming into the tornado again. Never knows.
After the wins, it is one of the typical moments the Western swimming society had doubts on the results. This time, they add one more thing: suit. There are a lot of communication problems between China and the rest of the world which may always make Chinese swimming remain a secret operation. Chinese media actually is in general poorly informative in swimming event especially after Chinese swimming no longer medal well in major competitions. Like Athletics, the whole athletics page in Chinese sports website is delidicated to Liu Xiang. They only chase and analyze a little more for those who can medal. They don't care enough. Without solid base of media in China dedicated to Chinese swimming, all my information in the domestic competitions is gathered from fragments of reports in the provincial or general sports websites in China. If this is so, how can the Western swimming fans or media know more about them. Unlikely. Everytime when they medal and one of the swimmers did well, they would say xxx coming out from no where or xxx last year is on (this time) and the time drop this year is xxx which is too dramatic to believe if it is true. One thing I noticed such a miscommunications is from swimnews.com who reported the girl who received the bronze medal on behalf of Gao Chang in women's 50m back is Zhu Qianwei and he sensed something fishy about this since he mentioned same situation happened in 1994. According to reports in China, Gao's absence was due to a slight delay in urine testing which the organizer could not wait for her to start the medal ceremony. Since China also won the 4x200m free relay and the medal ceremony was followed by the women's 50m back, the quartet from China was also waiting in the scene. Italian organizer just picked a random Chinese girl from the quartet and the "lucky girl" was Liu Jing (not Zhu as reported). After the ceremony, Gao Chang came back and joined the medalists. Furthermore, when the WRs were punched like a paper puncher after the introduction of suits like LZR, Craig Lord, a dedicated swimnews.com reporter had a lot of reports on how the all time lists have been affecting. One time, he listed out the women's 400m IM list and put a note next to Chen Yan and Wu Yanyan something like "positive in subsequent drug test". Poor Chen who may be mistaken for the other Chen Yan, once a top national backstroker in late 1990s from Jiangsu province and test positive for steriod in 1999. I pointed out to him by email and he insisted he is right so nothing I can do for the clarification. Her under-par performance after 1998 was mainly due to intensive training that caused her stomach problems and shoulder injuries. After 2000 Olympics, she rested totally without any competition and managed to put out some great performance at the end of 2001 in national Games. She chose to retire since she did not want to train under the national team which may worsen her conditions. One more thing on the confusion of the names is from swiminfo when there is a dedicated statistician who made a lot of errors in the performances from China in the all time list. Like Zhao Jing in backstroke, you also can find her early performance under different person's name like Jin Zhao. The other funny one is Xutian Longzi. This kind of "double surname " like "Xu+tian" is getting popular nowadays. In the list, they have Xu tianlongzi and Longzi Xutian. It is kinda funny but this is the barrier that it is hard to break between China and the Western world.
I think later more and more people will say things on Chen Huijia's 1:04 leg in 4x100 medley relay since she only swam 1:07.2 in semifinal of 100m breastroke finishing 12th. This is already her pb. Chen has already been in the domestic scene quite some time. She is a 1:09 swimmer since 2005 and improved to 1:08.13 last year winning the Olympic trial. She made it to the semi final. She also competed in world champ 2007 as well. She is always more like a sprinter since she normally comes out very fast in the 1st 50m swimming 31 low or 30 high but her endurance was not so impressive. Her pb in 200m breast was 2:30 before Roma world champ but she did a 2:26 in heats this time which I think it is a good sign for the endurance part. 2:26, is not quite good enough nowadays to make the last 16 but I saw it and think she is still in a pretty good shape after 100m. In the heats of medley relay, she did 1:05 which surprised me since before the race, I think the breaststroke and free will be wildcards for China and they are kinda unpredictable. What I mean is it could be weak compared to other top teams and it can be really competitive that at least they can hold off those stronger opponents. I cannot imagine Chen swam 1:04.12, the fastest split among all breastrokers. Last year, she did not make to the final of individual event so Chinese team picked the finalist, Sun Ye who did 1:07 split which was like 2-3 seconds behind the great Jones. This time, Chen really stepped up and recovered the loss of Luo Xuejuan, who retired prematurely due to her heart condition. It is noted that both Luo and Chen are in the same provincial team and they know how to produce fine breastrokers. I believe Chen already has 1:06 in her but with the suit, the improvement is doubled. For Chen, this swim could be one of the times and platform for her to gain more confidence in herself.
Probably, people will still think Chinese are cheaters on (1) drug issue: Scandals in 1994 and 1998 together with Wu Yanyan in 2000 and Ouyang Kunpeng in 2008 are still lingering deep down in the swimming world. I am with you and always be alert. Once caught, no matter swimmers from China or other countries, they normally denied using drugs deliberately (who would?) and may put out some typical explanations like misusing some kinds of flu medicine or supplements (Hardy's case) or having barbaque (for Ouyang's case and Zhou Jie's case in 2005) or even mis-drinking mineral water doped by their rivals or admirers. Who knows if they are saying the truth? I think it is a good thing to store the athletes' samples for later test once any new technique is invented. I think some of the Olympic medalists from last year were busted this way. Although international swimming society has seen the efforts from China on drug problem, the low level of infomation exchange due to language barrier (attributing to low circulation of translated swimming news from China) does no good to make their swimmers known to the world swimming. This situation will continue; (2) Suit issue: I think all swimmers who medalled are wearing technology-assisted suits. No matter it is LZR, hydrofoil, Arena X-glide and Jaked01, swimmers get the extra assistance and the difference is the extent the suit can help one swimmer. If it is so strict, all swimmers in the field are cheaters and non-cheaters (or suckers) are those who still wear fabric brief. No matter it is a swimming world or business world, people definitely would do something "legal" to get the edge over their opponents. It is more than normal. When there are people involved, it is hard to keep it innocent like a glass of pure water. The drug is one thing and the suit is the other. People may think Craig Lord is cynical but I think he is more like a watchdog trying to keep the pool from the impurities. I think it is a good thing. Probably, there will be other thing that puts the world swimming into the tornado again. Never knows.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Liu Zige, shaky future?
Chinese swimming team arrived Rome a few days ago and Chinese media started going around and gathering infomation for their big guns. One of these is Olympian champion, Liu Zige. After a surprising win in women's 200m fly, Liu, her coach, Jin Wei and Shi Feng (semi-finalist in men's 100m fly) fled to Australia for the training camp. She competed in Australian NC and then Chinese NC in April where she did 2:07 low which was considered a good time. Definitely, People in China expected more since she swam a sensational WR 2:04.18 at Olympics.
Today, there was a media report about her coach, Jin Wei who appeared to be frustrated about their current siutation. In the report, he said, "Please leave Liu alone. We don't want to be famous and she is just an ordinary national swimmer. There is no good to be famous." The journalist came up with something skin-deep,"Liu with fame can shoot commercials" Jin refuted," Liu only shot 2 commericals and she only earned 10,000 and 6,600 bucks from them. What's good for being famous?"
the journalist then turned the focus to the training cost. First, she mentioned 2 million of the training allowance for Tao Li in Singapore. Tao is a former Chinese swimmer from Hubei Province who is now representing Singapore and was a 4th placer in 100m butterfly at Olympics. (Surprisingly, Tao's father, Tao Rong is the manager of HuBei swimming team which has been rising in domestic scene for the last few years and has produced fine swimners such as Zhao Jing and Li Jiaxing who competed in Olympics). In contrast, Jin Wei's training operation is rather traditional. After he came back from Australia in 1995, he founded a swimming school on his own in Liaoning province where Liu and Shi Feng started their swimming training. In 2004, Shanghai was organizing an athlete selection event and Jin and his disciples were selected to join Shanghai team which had produced Olympic champions such as Yang Wenyi, Zhuang Yong and Le Jingyi. I guess, the facilities in Shanghai should be superior to other province. As far as I know, Shanghai has produced world class sportsman like Yao Ming (NBA player), Liu Xiang (men's 110m hurdle world champion and Olympic champion in 2004) and Qian Zhenhua (men's modern penthalon world champion in 2005) and a lot more. Yao should be 2nd or 3rd Chinese NBA player (sorry, not a fan for professional basketball) and the latter two are unprecedented in China. It appears to me Shanghai is one of the important places where symbolizes the breakthough of Chinese sports.
The report then mentioned in 2007, Jin sold his car to build a pool for training of Liu and Shi and after Liu's win at Olympics, the 1st thing she wanted to spend is to get her coach a new car. However, with all the glory behind them, a new financial problem is standing in the way of Jin. They fled to Australia for training camp this January and all the costs were dipped from Jin's pocket which greatly worried him. He sighed, "I may retire after bankcrucy."
Talking about swimmers' future, He said," It is uncertain and I have no clue whether they will be on the next meet (National Games). I have no idea what will be happening tomorrow. Now, I only have Liu and Shi and when Liu retires, I will go too. When the time comes, I may do something else (rather than coaching). Being an ordinary man is pretty much what I want."
There is full of uncertainties in Jin but when the topic turns to the competition in Rome, he restores his confidence,"We don't have pressure. We come here not to sit back because we are representing China. We will go all out or we don't go out."
Today, there was a media report about her coach, Jin Wei who appeared to be frustrated about their current siutation. In the report, he said, "Please leave Liu alone. We don't want to be famous and she is just an ordinary national swimmer. There is no good to be famous." The journalist came up with something skin-deep,"Liu with fame can shoot commercials" Jin refuted," Liu only shot 2 commericals and she only earned 10,000 and 6,600 bucks from them. What's good for being famous?"
the journalist then turned the focus to the training cost. First, she mentioned 2 million of the training allowance for Tao Li in Singapore. Tao is a former Chinese swimmer from Hubei Province who is now representing Singapore and was a 4th placer in 100m butterfly at Olympics. (Surprisingly, Tao's father, Tao Rong is the manager of HuBei swimming team which has been rising in domestic scene for the last few years and has produced fine swimners such as Zhao Jing and Li Jiaxing who competed in Olympics). In contrast, Jin Wei's training operation is rather traditional. After he came back from Australia in 1995, he founded a swimming school on his own in Liaoning province where Liu and Shi Feng started their swimming training. In 2004, Shanghai was organizing an athlete selection event and Jin and his disciples were selected to join Shanghai team which had produced Olympic champions such as Yang Wenyi, Zhuang Yong and Le Jingyi. I guess, the facilities in Shanghai should be superior to other province. As far as I know, Shanghai has produced world class sportsman like Yao Ming (NBA player), Liu Xiang (men's 110m hurdle world champion and Olympic champion in 2004) and Qian Zhenhua (men's modern penthalon world champion in 2005) and a lot more. Yao should be 2nd or 3rd Chinese NBA player (sorry, not a fan for professional basketball) and the latter two are unprecedented in China. It appears to me Shanghai is one of the important places where symbolizes the breakthough of Chinese sports.
The report then mentioned in 2007, Jin sold his car to build a pool for training of Liu and Shi and after Liu's win at Olympics, the 1st thing she wanted to spend is to get her coach a new car. However, with all the glory behind them, a new financial problem is standing in the way of Jin. They fled to Australia for training camp this January and all the costs were dipped from Jin's pocket which greatly worried him. He sighed, "I may retire after bankcrucy."
Talking about swimmers' future, He said," It is uncertain and I have no clue whether they will be on the next meet (National Games). I have no idea what will be happening tomorrow. Now, I only have Liu and Shi and when Liu retires, I will go too. When the time comes, I may do something else (rather than coaching). Being an ordinary man is pretty much what I want."
There is full of uncertainties in Jin but when the topic turns to the competition in Rome, he restores his confidence,"We don't have pressure. We come here not to sit back because we are representing China. We will go all out or we don't go out."
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Yang Yu, a journal she wrote for her Olympics
Introduction: Yang Yu, born in 1985. She was a triple Olympian (2000, 2004, 2008) winning silver medals in women's 4x200m free relay in 2004 and 2008. In world championships, she was silver medalist in 2001 and 2003 and bronze medalist in 2005 in women's 200m free. She was also part of winning team in 4x100m medley relay in 2003 World Championships. She won short course 200m free world champions twice in 2000 and 2006. She planned to retire after this year.
PB (long course):
50m free: 25.29s (2009)
100m free: 54.94 (2001)
200m free: 1:56.79 (2008)
Below is a translated version of the journal she wrote about her feelings for Olympics:
Beijing, a city that is familiarized by world civilians in 2008
Olympics, a sports gala held in Beijing that is known by people all over the world.
2008, the hardest year it has been for Chinese.
Now, it is about to become a piece of history.
When everyone is sighing about why time flies, I can’t help to start feeling down.
A lot happened this year. Everything happened all the sudden without a sign.
Starting from the snow storm at the beginning of the year followed by independence issue in Tibet and then the earthquake, together with explosion incidence during torch relay and incidence of someone (I guess she referred to Ouyang Kunpeng’s doping case), it seems all these “deliberately” put up their final showdowns before Olympics.
Finally, here came the Olympic opening ceremony and it seemed everything was fated to change after 8pm on August 08, 2008 which to me is utterly mind-boggling. The opening ceremony amazed everyone and each program was so jaw-dropping that make people all over the world marvelled at the wonder created by Chinese. Up to this point, who knew it was just a beginning? And who could figure out Chinese could outdo Americans by so much in the number of gold medals which exceeded 50 this time?
From my point of view, there have been so many unbelievable surprises created in the swimming event alone. From Yafei’s Asian record (Zhou Yafei in women’s 100m fly) on day 1 to Zhouzhou’s silver medal (Zhang Lin in men’s 400m free) on day 2, Ah Pang’s bronze medal with world record (Pang Jiaying in women’s 200m free) on day 5 until August 14, a climax for Chinese swimming in the meet when Liu Zige in women’s 200m fly walked away with gold medal plus world record, these all happened all the sudden like a dream but they were all real.
To me, the whole meet seemed to be so hard to comprehend. It was like a trip to me in this edition of Olympics since I only had one relay to swim (women’s 4x200m free). The relay was given up by all and we all thought making to the final was good enough (comment: Although Chinese women’s 4x200m free team has been multi medallists in all major competitions since 2001 and before 2007 world championships, they did not make it to the final in 2007 Worlds because swimmers all over the world have been stepping up a big time in this era and the improvement in Chinese swimming seemed to be a little sluggish a few years back). Of course, it was what exactly I have been thinking... But after the heat, it was like a joke from god has been made on me that I swam a personal best by surprise. “What’s going on?”, I asked myself after the heat. Anyway, the competition went on and I did not have the time to think this through. Since it has been this way (making to the final), I just had to do better in the final. We leapt one big step further in the final by chopping off the world record by 5 seconds which I never thought of, really, really. Although we lost to Australia, we reigned the silver medal once more (after 2004 Athens Olympics) and broke the old world record by 5 seconds. I am satisfied, really. After the swim, all the friends were sending their congratulations and we are all like becoming one who feels the same fullness of the outcome, really. I feel so lucky and so happy that so many people have been concerning so much about me.
After that, I was in the stand cheering for the team and one day, I suddenly sensed that in near future, I won’t be standing on the poolside like this cheering for my team mates and friends… In fact, I have known it for a long time. But if I retire one day, it will be so missed since I love swimming so much. I used to thinking of giving up (swimming) whenever I was in pain (caused by training or poor results), but water which is the thing I was in love since I was a kid… I never thought of this emotion surfacing so soon. I am looking at the watercube and thinking about my friends, I feel bumped when I know everyone will walk their own lives after retirement… I may be thinking too much. I am so grateful of Beijing and I am so grateful of this Olympics. Not only had it offered me a silver medal and financial incentives, but also more satisfaction and happiness come from within. Finally, I would like to say “I am so lucky to meet you all, really.”
Good luck to you, Yang Yu. One of the swimmers to witness the fall of Chinese swimming (1999-2000) to its sprouting (2001-2004), to its small setback (2007) and to its rise again (2008-2009).
PB (long course):
50m free: 25.29s (2009)
100m free: 54.94 (2001)
200m free: 1:56.79 (2008)
Below is a translated version of the journal she wrote about her feelings for Olympics:
Beijing, a city that is familiarized by world civilians in 2008
Olympics, a sports gala held in Beijing that is known by people all over the world.
2008, the hardest year it has been for Chinese.
Now, it is about to become a piece of history.
When everyone is sighing about why time flies, I can’t help to start feeling down.
A lot happened this year. Everything happened all the sudden without a sign.
Starting from the snow storm at the beginning of the year followed by independence issue in Tibet and then the earthquake, together with explosion incidence during torch relay and incidence of someone (I guess she referred to Ouyang Kunpeng’s doping case), it seems all these “deliberately” put up their final showdowns before Olympics.
Finally, here came the Olympic opening ceremony and it seemed everything was fated to change after 8pm on August 08, 2008 which to me is utterly mind-boggling. The opening ceremony amazed everyone and each program was so jaw-dropping that make people all over the world marvelled at the wonder created by Chinese. Up to this point, who knew it was just a beginning? And who could figure out Chinese could outdo Americans by so much in the number of gold medals which exceeded 50 this time?
From my point of view, there have been so many unbelievable surprises created in the swimming event alone. From Yafei’s Asian record (Zhou Yafei in women’s 100m fly) on day 1 to Zhouzhou’s silver medal (Zhang Lin in men’s 400m free) on day 2, Ah Pang’s bronze medal with world record (Pang Jiaying in women’s 200m free) on day 5 until August 14, a climax for Chinese swimming in the meet when Liu Zige in women’s 200m fly walked away with gold medal plus world record, these all happened all the sudden like a dream but they were all real.
To me, the whole meet seemed to be so hard to comprehend. It was like a trip to me in this edition of Olympics since I only had one relay to swim (women’s 4x200m free). The relay was given up by all and we all thought making to the final was good enough (comment: Although Chinese women’s 4x200m free team has been multi medallists in all major competitions since 2001 and before 2007 world championships, they did not make it to the final in 2007 Worlds because swimmers all over the world have been stepping up a big time in this era and the improvement in Chinese swimming seemed to be a little sluggish a few years back). Of course, it was what exactly I have been thinking... But after the heat, it was like a joke from god has been made on me that I swam a personal best by surprise. “What’s going on?”, I asked myself after the heat. Anyway, the competition went on and I did not have the time to think this through. Since it has been this way (making to the final), I just had to do better in the final. We leapt one big step further in the final by chopping off the world record by 5 seconds which I never thought of, really, really. Although we lost to Australia, we reigned the silver medal once more (after 2004 Athens Olympics) and broke the old world record by 5 seconds. I am satisfied, really. After the swim, all the friends were sending their congratulations and we are all like becoming one who feels the same fullness of the outcome, really. I feel so lucky and so happy that so many people have been concerning so much about me.
After that, I was in the stand cheering for the team and one day, I suddenly sensed that in near future, I won’t be standing on the poolside like this cheering for my team mates and friends… In fact, I have known it for a long time. But if I retire one day, it will be so missed since I love swimming so much. I used to thinking of giving up (swimming) whenever I was in pain (caused by training or poor results), but water which is the thing I was in love since I was a kid… I never thought of this emotion surfacing so soon. I am looking at the watercube and thinking about my friends, I feel bumped when I know everyone will walk their own lives after retirement… I may be thinking too much. I am so grateful of Beijing and I am so grateful of this Olympics. Not only had it offered me a silver medal and financial incentives, but also more satisfaction and happiness come from within. Finally, I would like to say “I am so lucky to meet you all, really.”
Good luck to you, Yang Yu. One of the swimmers to witness the fall of Chinese swimming (1999-2000) to its sprouting (2001-2004), to its small setback (2007) and to its rise again (2008-2009).
Monday, July 06, 2009
What's wrong with Chinese women middle and long distance running?
The last national track and field meet before national games just ended in Jinan, where the 11th National Games will be held. Expectedly, most of the atheletes just took the chance to feel the newly built stadium and they just came here to "stroll and toss". Only a few good results were produced: e.g. Men's pole vault with both Liu Feiliang and Yang Yansheng past 5.70m, Gong Lijiao's 19.66m in women's shotput and Huang Xiaoxiao's 55.60 in women's 400m hurdle. A ridiculously slow race was seen in women's 5000m when Bai Xue won the race over 17min. 10000m was also disappointed as well. So, what's wrong with Chinese women's distance running after a glorius era?
From 1992 to 2004, China produced 1 bronze medalist in marathon, 1 Olympic champion and 1 silver medalist in 10000m, 1 Olympic Champion in 5000m, 1 Olympic bronze medalist in 1500m. From 1991 to 2005, China also produced 1 silver medalist in marathon, 1 world champion, 2 silver medalists and 2 bronze medalists in 10000m, 1 world champion, 1 silver medalist and 1 bronze medalist in 3000m and 1 world champion in 1500m.
In late 1980s, 2 rising long distance runners, Wang Xiuting and Zhong Huanti from Yunnan province started producing world class results in 10,000m. In 1991, they took everyone by surprise to take silver and bronze medal in Tokyo world championships. They also finished top 8 in the Olympics next year. In Barcelona Olympics 1992, a distance running force started to form from China. Ma Junren, a legendary figure in Chinese women distance running, had his 1st disciple win the 1st Olympics medal in women distance running as Qu Yunxia came in 3rd in 1500m. In the same year, his young disciples won all the distances from 800 to 10000m in Seoul world junior championships. In 1993, I think most people who concerns about athletics should know when the team coached by Ma (also called Ma's army) won 1500, 3000 and 10,000m in Stuggart world championships and they broke all these 3 world records in 7th Chinese National Games in outrageous manner. Qu Yunxia broke 1500m while Wang Junxia took the rest and these records are still intact after 16 years. With the rapid rise from Africa, there will be better opportunity for them to break 10,000m since they broke the 30min last year. After this mental barrier, faster and faster times will be seen from them but Wang's record was still like 20 seconds faster than their best. 3000m is the hardest since Wang's 8:06.11 was way too fast and not many runners nowadays can dip below 8:20. The possible reason is it is no longer raced in Olympics and world championships so their training is more focused on 5000 and 10000m. Qu's 1500m is also untouchable since 3:55 is considered the top time nowadays and Qu was at 3:50.46.
However, In late 1994 and early 1995, the winning team disintegraded due to Ma's harsh coaching. After that, Ma started fostering a new generation of runners which was shown form in 1995 city games when Jiang Bo broke the women's 5000m junior world record and beat Wang. Wang lost his top form after leaving Ma but she did not give up and started training under Mao Dezhen who just passed away a month ago. Under Mao's training, although Wang did not regain her WR-breaking form, she did manage to qualify for the Olympics and won the inaugural women's 5000m event and came in 2nd in 10,000m. In this period of training, Wang constantly suffered from serious headache and she cannot carry on any more training the following year for the 8th Chinese National Games. After she recovered, she did request training under Mao but he refused since there seemed to be a lot of conflicts after he took over Wang from Ma. In China, it is not easy to find a coach at your own will due to runner's registration to a particular unit or province. After 1996 Atlanta Olympics, she hung up her spikes forever and this considered a great ending for a distance runner like her.
In 1997, after no single runner from Ma's army qualified for the 1996 Olympics, he intended to repeat the WR-breaking wave in 8th Chinese National Games. His runners broke women's 5000m and ran several world number 1 times but the wave was way less stronger than that in 1993. In 1998, although his disciples won a couple of events in world junior championships, his magic was getting weaker. No single runner was selected to Bangkok Asian Games in the same year and 1999 Sevilla world championships. In 2000, he made his final effort to produce his own Olympic champion (which Wang was not considered) but they fell to EPO testing and only 1 survived the test. His only and final Olympic representative, Li Ji, finished 6th in Olympics. In 2001, he pulled off another 4 wins in 9th National Games and it was the end of his coaching. Now, he becomes a dog trainer.
In 2001 chinese national games, 2 great stars were produced: Xing Huina and Sun Yingjie. Sun has been in marathon scene for a couple of years and she made a breakthrough in shorter distance in 2001. Xing was only 17 years old that year and finished 2nd in 5000m with 14:56. Sun was training under Wang Dexian and Xing belongs to Shandong province. After Xing's performance in 2001, she was trained under Wang who became the national team coach in charge of women's distance running. In 2002, Sun produced a world number 2 time in 10000m and 2003, she won a bronze medal in world championships with Xing breaking world junior record. Xing then won the women's 10000m in 2004 Athen Olympics and Sun won the world half marathon title. 2005 was a turning point. Both of them could not medal in Helski world championships but finished considerably well. Later in 10th Chinese national games, Sun won the marathon and came in 2nd in 10,000m after Xing after a day or 2. However, she did not pass the drug test after 10,000m when she was ok after the marathon. It started a long struggle for Sun and Xing. Due to Sun's offence and the other offence from Wang's former runner, Wang was banned from coaching in any form in lifetime which means she can't coach both Xing and Sun. Sun was also banned for 2 years. The ugly past started to surface for Wang. Sun left Wang because she could not take Wang's controlling style and beating. A few of his former runners, also came out to sue him over the prize money and salaries he promised to give and the physical damage during training under him. In one case, one runner had her toe deformed so badly over years and years of harsh training without proper care from him. Among them, the most famous is Ai Dongmei who won Beijing marthon in late 1990s. She also ran a few international marathons in the past and google search should be able to find her marathon times.
After Sun dismissed his coach, Sun's team appointed another coach to Sun but with the injuries she had suffered over the years, her form has not been regained since. In 2008, she started racing again but the times she ran were far slower than her top times and she could not make it to the Olympics. Xing, also repeatedly suffered from old injuries in the last couple of years. For 2008 Olympics, she did try the last resort as she trained under Li Li, a Chinese coach whose disciples include Bernard Lagat, the double world champion in 2007. The training was in vain since Xing's injuries stopped her from the right track and she missed the Beijing Olympics.
In 2008 Olympics, a young generation was sent to race. world junior champion in 2006, Xue Fei, 19 yo, ran into 5000m final. Bai Xue, 20yo, and Zhang Yingying, 18 yo were competiting the 10000m. Without any experience, they both failed to make impact.
In 2007, we did see a ray of hope when many runners hit the Olympics A-qualifying marks in city games. A few of them like He Pan who did 15:09 chose to go to university and Liu Nian who broke the Asian record at 9:26 in 3000m steeplechase also retired for studing. Same for Song Xiaoxue who did 31:34 in 10000m. They all retired for higher education degree.
A few explanations were pointed out: Most of kids born after 1990 are single child and their parents would rather see them study than "running for life". Life of new generation is less bitter than their seniors who run to create a better future which obviously do not apply now. Since they have more options, why do they choose a hard one? Chinese sports is still like an industry type. Once they think you are a talent, they will mold you into the shape they think it is good. Furthermore, they probably only do one single thing most of the time: training, training and training. They have these sports school, provincial team and national team to mold you into the shape. What you do is to compete to come in 1st for the team and you will get rewards. After your peak is over or severe injuries, the only thing left for them is reality. There are so many bitter stories for sports champions who can't get a living after retirement. Like the runners from Ma's army, most of them are not doing so well currently after so many years. furthermore, University sports is still uncommon and incompetitive in china. Those athletes who competed in the national university games are mostly from the provincial or national teams who are just hanging the university brand names and probably never go to the school (may be exaggerating a little).
A ray of hope: When Hu Kai won men's 100m in 2005 universiade, a lot in China may think how to combine sports and eduation and take advantage of both of them. Hu is a real Qing Hua university student and he really goes to school for lecture. This case is still tip of the iceberg but I would say Chinese women distance running will probably be getting weaker with the current situation. Although there are still a lot of Chinese in hardship, there are more and more ways to make quick bucks in China. I think you know what I mean.
From 1992 to 2004, China produced 1 bronze medalist in marathon, 1 Olympic champion and 1 silver medalist in 10000m, 1 Olympic Champion in 5000m, 1 Olympic bronze medalist in 1500m. From 1991 to 2005, China also produced 1 silver medalist in marathon, 1 world champion, 2 silver medalists and 2 bronze medalists in 10000m, 1 world champion, 1 silver medalist and 1 bronze medalist in 3000m and 1 world champion in 1500m.
In late 1980s, 2 rising long distance runners, Wang Xiuting and Zhong Huanti from Yunnan province started producing world class results in 10,000m. In 1991, they took everyone by surprise to take silver and bronze medal in Tokyo world championships. They also finished top 8 in the Olympics next year. In Barcelona Olympics 1992, a distance running force started to form from China. Ma Junren, a legendary figure in Chinese women distance running, had his 1st disciple win the 1st Olympics medal in women distance running as Qu Yunxia came in 3rd in 1500m. In the same year, his young disciples won all the distances from 800 to 10000m in Seoul world junior championships. In 1993, I think most people who concerns about athletics should know when the team coached by Ma (also called Ma's army) won 1500, 3000 and 10,000m in Stuggart world championships and they broke all these 3 world records in 7th Chinese National Games in outrageous manner. Qu Yunxia broke 1500m while Wang Junxia took the rest and these records are still intact after 16 years. With the rapid rise from Africa, there will be better opportunity for them to break 10,000m since they broke the 30min last year. After this mental barrier, faster and faster times will be seen from them but Wang's record was still like 20 seconds faster than their best. 3000m is the hardest since Wang's 8:06.11 was way too fast and not many runners nowadays can dip below 8:20. The possible reason is it is no longer raced in Olympics and world championships so their training is more focused on 5000 and 10000m. Qu's 1500m is also untouchable since 3:55 is considered the top time nowadays and Qu was at 3:50.46.
However, In late 1994 and early 1995, the winning team disintegraded due to Ma's harsh coaching. After that, Ma started fostering a new generation of runners which was shown form in 1995 city games when Jiang Bo broke the women's 5000m junior world record and beat Wang. Wang lost his top form after leaving Ma but she did not give up and started training under Mao Dezhen who just passed away a month ago. Under Mao's training, although Wang did not regain her WR-breaking form, she did manage to qualify for the Olympics and won the inaugural women's 5000m event and came in 2nd in 10,000m. In this period of training, Wang constantly suffered from serious headache and she cannot carry on any more training the following year for the 8th Chinese National Games. After she recovered, she did request training under Mao but he refused since there seemed to be a lot of conflicts after he took over Wang from Ma. In China, it is not easy to find a coach at your own will due to runner's registration to a particular unit or province. After 1996 Atlanta Olympics, she hung up her spikes forever and this considered a great ending for a distance runner like her.
In 1997, after no single runner from Ma's army qualified for the 1996 Olympics, he intended to repeat the WR-breaking wave in 8th Chinese National Games. His runners broke women's 5000m and ran several world number 1 times but the wave was way less stronger than that in 1993. In 1998, although his disciples won a couple of events in world junior championships, his magic was getting weaker. No single runner was selected to Bangkok Asian Games in the same year and 1999 Sevilla world championships. In 2000, he made his final effort to produce his own Olympic champion (which Wang was not considered) but they fell to EPO testing and only 1 survived the test. His only and final Olympic representative, Li Ji, finished 6th in Olympics. In 2001, he pulled off another 4 wins in 9th National Games and it was the end of his coaching. Now, he becomes a dog trainer.
In 2001 chinese national games, 2 great stars were produced: Xing Huina and Sun Yingjie. Sun has been in marathon scene for a couple of years and she made a breakthrough in shorter distance in 2001. Xing was only 17 years old that year and finished 2nd in 5000m with 14:56. Sun was training under Wang Dexian and Xing belongs to Shandong province. After Xing's performance in 2001, she was trained under Wang who became the national team coach in charge of women's distance running. In 2002, Sun produced a world number 2 time in 10000m and 2003, she won a bronze medal in world championships with Xing breaking world junior record. Xing then won the women's 10000m in 2004 Athen Olympics and Sun won the world half marathon title. 2005 was a turning point. Both of them could not medal in Helski world championships but finished considerably well. Later in 10th Chinese national games, Sun won the marathon and came in 2nd in 10,000m after Xing after a day or 2. However, she did not pass the drug test after 10,000m when she was ok after the marathon. It started a long struggle for Sun and Xing. Due to Sun's offence and the other offence from Wang's former runner, Wang was banned from coaching in any form in lifetime which means she can't coach both Xing and Sun. Sun was also banned for 2 years. The ugly past started to surface for Wang. Sun left Wang because she could not take Wang's controlling style and beating. A few of his former runners, also came out to sue him over the prize money and salaries he promised to give and the physical damage during training under him. In one case, one runner had her toe deformed so badly over years and years of harsh training without proper care from him. Among them, the most famous is Ai Dongmei who won Beijing marthon in late 1990s. She also ran a few international marathons in the past and google search should be able to find her marathon times.
After Sun dismissed his coach, Sun's team appointed another coach to Sun but with the injuries she had suffered over the years, her form has not been regained since. In 2008, she started racing again but the times she ran were far slower than her top times and she could not make it to the Olympics. Xing, also repeatedly suffered from old injuries in the last couple of years. For 2008 Olympics, she did try the last resort as she trained under Li Li, a Chinese coach whose disciples include Bernard Lagat, the double world champion in 2007. The training was in vain since Xing's injuries stopped her from the right track and she missed the Beijing Olympics.
In 2008 Olympics, a young generation was sent to race. world junior champion in 2006, Xue Fei, 19 yo, ran into 5000m final. Bai Xue, 20yo, and Zhang Yingying, 18 yo were competiting the 10000m. Without any experience, they both failed to make impact.
In 2007, we did see a ray of hope when many runners hit the Olympics A-qualifying marks in city games. A few of them like He Pan who did 15:09 chose to go to university and Liu Nian who broke the Asian record at 9:26 in 3000m steeplechase also retired for studing. Same for Song Xiaoxue who did 31:34 in 10000m. They all retired for higher education degree.
A few explanations were pointed out: Most of kids born after 1990 are single child and their parents would rather see them study than "running for life". Life of new generation is less bitter than their seniors who run to create a better future which obviously do not apply now. Since they have more options, why do they choose a hard one? Chinese sports is still like an industry type. Once they think you are a talent, they will mold you into the shape they think it is good. Furthermore, they probably only do one single thing most of the time: training, training and training. They have these sports school, provincial team and national team to mold you into the shape. What you do is to compete to come in 1st for the team and you will get rewards. After your peak is over or severe injuries, the only thing left for them is reality. There are so many bitter stories for sports champions who can't get a living after retirement. Like the runners from Ma's army, most of them are not doing so well currently after so many years. furthermore, University sports is still uncommon and incompetitive in china. Those athletes who competed in the national university games are mostly from the provincial or national teams who are just hanging the university brand names and probably never go to the school (may be exaggerating a little).
A ray of hope: When Hu Kai won men's 100m in 2005 universiade, a lot in China may think how to combine sports and eduation and take advantage of both of them. Hu is a real Qing Hua university student and he really goes to school for lecture. This case is still tip of the iceberg but I would say Chinese women distance running will probably be getting weaker with the current situation. Although there are still a lot of Chinese in hardship, there are more and more ways to make quick bucks in China. I think you know what I mean.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Chinese swimming team for universiade 2009 in Belgrade
A day before the competition, the participant list for Chinese swimming team was announced for Universiade.
Men's 100m Backstroke
ZHANG Chang
22/04/1983
pb: 55.95
2008: 57.01 (7th in China)
Men's 100m Breaststroke
ZHU Yanbin
30/08/1988
University swimmer, not registered with Chinese swimming Association
Men's 100m Butterfly
JIN Tao
03/11/1988
2008: 56.66 (34th in China)
ZHANG Chang
22/04/1983
Not his main event
Men's 100m Freestyle
CHEN Zheng
27/09/1991
University swimmer, not registered with Chinese swimming Association in 2008
DU Wentao
20/11/1985
2004: 51.44
University swimmer, not registered with Chinese swimming Association in 2008
Men's 1500m Freestyle
ZHAO Guannan
11/02/1987
2004: 16:24.75
University swimmer, not registered with Chinese swimming Association in 2008
Men's 200m Breaststroke
LI Ziqiang
01/03/1986
2008: 2:19.29
Men's 200m Butterfly
JIN Tao
03/11/1988
2008: 2:02.18
Men's 200m Freestyle
CHEN Zheng
27/09/1991
HENG Zhicheng
23/04/1986
Men's 200m Individual Medley
LI Ziqiang
01/03/1986
2008: 2:05.28
ZHANG Zhe
11/02/1991
Men's 400m Freestyle
ZHANG Zhe
11/02/1991
ZHAO Guannan
11/02/1987
2004: 4:13.66
Men's 400m Individual Medley
LI Ziqiang
01/03/1986
2008: 4:23.37 (3rd in China)
Men's 50m Backstroke
HENG Zhicheng
23/04/1986
ZHANG Chang
22/04/1983
Men's 50m Breaststroke
ZHU Yanbin
30/08/1988
Men's 50m Butterfly
CHEN Zheng
27/09/1991
JIN Tao
03/11/1988
Men's 50m Freestyle
DU Wentao
20/11/1985
2004: 23.44 (6th in China)
ZHU Yanbin
30/08/1988
Men's 800m Freestyle
HENG Zhicheng
23/04/1986
ZHANG Zhe
11/02/1991
Women's 100m Backstroke
LIU Zhen
01/04/1988
2004: 1:03.23 (12th in China)
2005: 1:02.96
2006: 1:02.81
XU Tianlongzi
11/01/1991
2005: 1:02.65
2006: 1:01.22 (world no. 10)
2007: 1:01.06 (1st in China)
2008: 1:00.82 (2nd in China)
2009: 1:01.45
Women's 100m Breaststroke
XIE Jue
18/08/1990
2008: 1:13.03 (34th in China)
Women's 100m Butterfly
HONG Wenwen
22/08/1986
2005: 59.84
2006: 59.77
2007: 59.97
2008: 59.13 (4th in China)
2009: 58.88
JIANG Wenjing
21/01/1989
2005: 1:00.14
2006: 1:01.07
2008: 1:00.96 (16th in China)
Women's 100m Freestyle
MA Weimiao
02/02/1988
YU Yao
14/01/1991
2008: 56.45 (15th in China)
2009: 55.54
Women's 1500m Freestyle
MI Mengjiao
27/01/1990
Women's 200m Backstroke
XU Tianlongzi
11/01/1991
2005: 2:14.72
2007: 2:12.68
2008: 2:12.32
2009: 2:13.64
Women's 200m Butterfly
JIANG Wenjing
21/01/1989
2005: 2:11.35
2007: 2:14.34
2008: 2:13.76
Women's 200m Freestyle
MI Mengjiao
27/01/1990
2007: 2:01.57
2008: 2:01.08
XIA Chenying
27/07/1987
2008:2:02.42
Women's 200m Individual Medley
XIA Chenying
27/07/1987
2008: 2:17.97
XIE Jue
18/08/1990
2008: 2:15.96
Women's 400m Freestyle
MI Mengjiao
27/01/1990
2005: 4:18.13
2007: 4:16.38
2008: 4:14.29
XIA Chenying
27/07/1987
2006: 4:17.69
Women's 400m Individual Medley
JIANG Wenjing
21/01/1989
2008: 4:59.51
Women's 50m Backstroke
LIU Zhen
01/04/1988
2005: 30.10
2006: 29.29
XU Tianlongzi
11/01/1991
2005: 29.20
2006: 28.89
2007: 28.87
2008: 29.52 (split)
2009: 28.13 (world no. 10)
Women's 50m Breaststroke
LIU Zhen
01/04/1988
XIE Jue
18/08/1990
Women's 50m Butterfly
HONG Wenwen
22/08/1986
2005: 27.42
2006: 27.34
2007: 27.12
2008: 27.21
2009: 26.43
XIE Jue
18/08/1990
Women's 50m Freestyle
HONG Wenwen
22/08/1986
2008: 26.19
2009: 26.00
YU Yao
14/01/1991
2008: 26.30
2009: 25.92
Women's 800m Freestyle
MI Mengjiao
27/01/1990
2005: 8:53.47
2006: 8:51.16
Men's 100m Backstroke
ZHANG Chang
22/04/1983
pb: 55.95
2008: 57.01 (7th in China)
Men's 100m Breaststroke
ZHU Yanbin
30/08/1988
University swimmer, not registered with Chinese swimming Association
Men's 100m Butterfly
JIN Tao
03/11/1988
2008: 56.66 (34th in China)
ZHANG Chang
22/04/1983
Not his main event
Men's 100m Freestyle
CHEN Zheng
27/09/1991
University swimmer, not registered with Chinese swimming Association in 2008
DU Wentao
20/11/1985
2004: 51.44
University swimmer, not registered with Chinese swimming Association in 2008
Men's 1500m Freestyle
ZHAO Guannan
11/02/1987
2004: 16:24.75
University swimmer, not registered with Chinese swimming Association in 2008
Men's 200m Breaststroke
LI Ziqiang
01/03/1986
2008: 2:19.29
Men's 200m Butterfly
JIN Tao
03/11/1988
2008: 2:02.18
Men's 200m Freestyle
CHEN Zheng
27/09/1991
HENG Zhicheng
23/04/1986
Men's 200m Individual Medley
LI Ziqiang
01/03/1986
2008: 2:05.28
ZHANG Zhe
11/02/1991
Men's 400m Freestyle
ZHANG Zhe
11/02/1991
ZHAO Guannan
11/02/1987
2004: 4:13.66
Men's 400m Individual Medley
LI Ziqiang
01/03/1986
2008: 4:23.37 (3rd in China)
Men's 50m Backstroke
HENG Zhicheng
23/04/1986
ZHANG Chang
22/04/1983
Men's 50m Breaststroke
ZHU Yanbin
30/08/1988
Men's 50m Butterfly
CHEN Zheng
27/09/1991
JIN Tao
03/11/1988
Men's 50m Freestyle
DU Wentao
20/11/1985
2004: 23.44 (6th in China)
ZHU Yanbin
30/08/1988
Men's 800m Freestyle
HENG Zhicheng
23/04/1986
ZHANG Zhe
11/02/1991
Women's 100m Backstroke
LIU Zhen
01/04/1988
2004: 1:03.23 (12th in China)
2005: 1:02.96
2006: 1:02.81
XU Tianlongzi
11/01/1991
2005: 1:02.65
2006: 1:01.22 (world no. 10)
2007: 1:01.06 (1st in China)
2008: 1:00.82 (2nd in China)
2009: 1:01.45
Women's 100m Breaststroke
XIE Jue
18/08/1990
2008: 1:13.03 (34th in China)
Women's 100m Butterfly
HONG Wenwen
22/08/1986
2005: 59.84
2006: 59.77
2007: 59.97
2008: 59.13 (4th in China)
2009: 58.88
JIANG Wenjing
21/01/1989
2005: 1:00.14
2006: 1:01.07
2008: 1:00.96 (16th in China)
Women's 100m Freestyle
MA Weimiao
02/02/1988
YU Yao
14/01/1991
2008: 56.45 (15th in China)
2009: 55.54
Women's 1500m Freestyle
MI Mengjiao
27/01/1990
Women's 200m Backstroke
XU Tianlongzi
11/01/1991
2005: 2:14.72
2007: 2:12.68
2008: 2:12.32
2009: 2:13.64
Women's 200m Butterfly
JIANG Wenjing
21/01/1989
2005: 2:11.35
2007: 2:14.34
2008: 2:13.76
Women's 200m Freestyle
MI Mengjiao
27/01/1990
2007: 2:01.57
2008: 2:01.08
XIA Chenying
27/07/1987
2008:2:02.42
Women's 200m Individual Medley
XIA Chenying
27/07/1987
2008: 2:17.97
XIE Jue
18/08/1990
2008: 2:15.96
Women's 400m Freestyle
MI Mengjiao
27/01/1990
2005: 4:18.13
2007: 4:16.38
2008: 4:14.29
XIA Chenying
27/07/1987
2006: 4:17.69
Women's 400m Individual Medley
JIANG Wenjing
21/01/1989
2008: 4:59.51
Women's 50m Backstroke
LIU Zhen
01/04/1988
2005: 30.10
2006: 29.29
XU Tianlongzi
11/01/1991
2005: 29.20
2006: 28.89
2007: 28.87
2008: 29.52 (split)
2009: 28.13 (world no. 10)
Women's 50m Breaststroke
LIU Zhen
01/04/1988
XIE Jue
18/08/1990
Women's 50m Butterfly
HONG Wenwen
22/08/1986
2005: 27.42
2006: 27.34
2007: 27.12
2008: 27.21
2009: 26.43
XIE Jue
18/08/1990
Women's 50m Freestyle
HONG Wenwen
22/08/1986
2008: 26.19
2009: 26.00
YU Yao
14/01/1991
2008: 26.30
2009: 25.92
Women's 800m Freestyle
MI Mengjiao
27/01/1990
2005: 8:53.47
2006: 8:51.16
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Analysis of entry of Chinese WC contingent
A few days ago, Chinese announced their team for Rome this summer:
男：21人
何建彬、程飞轶、吴鹏、张琳、孙杨、张国英、王帅、周嘉威、石峰、薛佳佳、陈寅、陈祚、蔡力、吕志武、史腾飞、刘维佳、孙晗、辛桐、张宇、班豹、汪一鸣；
女：25人
郭君君、哈斯楠、朱颖文、任珺妮、焦刘洋、徐妍玮、刘京、李佳星、庞佳颖、杨雨、高畅、赵菁、陈慧佳、王然迪、朱倩蔚、唐奕、孙晔、刘子歌、李哲思、周雅菲、于尧、洪文文、徐田龙子、白安琪、郑蓉蓉
It is not the best team for China but based on the NG strategy, it is considerably strong team. We also see some substitute swimmer for women side for all disciplines. The biggest names absent in the team include Qi Hui and Li Xuanxu from the women side. Qi did really well in April when she set pbs in 100m breast (1:06.69) and 200m IM (2:11.10) which ranked the highest among the Chinese this year. Especially for 1:06.69 in 100m breaststroke (not the mark 1:06.85 put in swimnews.com) which is her 1st sub-1:07 and was just 0.05s away from AR set by Luo Xuejuan back 2004 Olympics. She also won her pet event, 200m breaststroke in 2:24 in the Chinese Nationals. However, the new head coach, Mo Zhenjie, indicated his loss of confidence in Qi who has not performed well in the last few major meets including 2007 WC and 2008 Olympics. As a former WR holder (2:22.99) back in 2001, she never managed to win any long course world title (beween 2001 and 2007) or Olympic medal (2000, 2004 and 2008) which were taken into account. Her best results in WC is silver in 2001, bronze in 2003; and in Olympics is 4th in 2000 Olympics and 5th or 6th in 2004.
Li Xuanxu, rising like a rocket in the last 2 years, is just 15 years old. She has already established herself as a 800m NR holder (8:24) and finalists in 2 Olympic events (400m IM and 800m free). However, she was not selected to the team. No reason is given regarding her absence but I don't think it is due to injuries since she was competiting in the NG qualifier/national junior championships last week and she won the 200m IM in 2:14 which was considered not too bad since this is not her strongest event. One thing is kind of weird is that currently she is not competiting under any province or unit which is prerequisite for chinese athletes competiting domestically. No matter it is provincial team or army team, you need to choose one to compete. According to the past reports, her coach, Feng Zhen, used to coached in Liaoning province and then in Hunan Province where she selected Li. Somehow, they were then training in Guangdong province and competiting 2007 city games under Guangzhou city. And now, she is under "unattached" tag. Hopefully, she will not be another "Chen Yan" who suffered from stomach illness in most of her career and only allowed her hitting big in national games and 1 edition of WC.
Back to the list:
On men's side:
何建彬, He Jianbin (Guangdong)
100m back: 55.69 (2009), 57.03 (2008)
New comer
程飞轶, Cheng Feiyi (Liaoning)
100m back: 54.99 (2009), 56.88 (2008)
New comer
Since Ouyang Kunpeng's doping ban, China suddenly lost their no. 1 backstroke swimmer which makes this discipline even weaker in China. No other Chinese men other than Ouyang swum faster than 55.0 until Cheng who just barely dipped below 55.0 mark. This shows how weak in general the men's backstroke is in China. Unlike their neigbour, Japan, who now consistently have swimmers doing sub 55 and even sub 54. The prospect of these swimmers in WC was not optimistic.
吴鹏, Wu Peng
200m butterfly: 1:54.35 (2008)
He has been one of the iconic swimmers for breakthrough in Chinese men. Emerged in 2001 NG as a 14 year-old to win 200m fly in NR (1:58.89) and then won 3 golds (including defeat ing Yamamoto in 200m fly, AR in 400m IM and surprise win in 200m back) in 2002 Asian Games. Semifinalist in 2003 WC and finalist (6th) in 2004 Athens Olympics. The first male swimmer to win medal in 2 editions of WC (bronze in 2005 and silver in 2007). He tied 4th in Olympics. Unfortunately, he broke his arm this year and is still unable to get back to full training. It will be tough for him to do well in WC this summer.
张琳, Zhang Lin
200m free: 1:45.83 (2009), 1:47.63 (2008)
400m free: 3:42.63 (2009), 3:42.44 (2008)
1500m free: 14:47.51 (2009), 14:45.84 (2008)
Another icon of male improvement in Chinese swimming who won the history Olympic swimming medal on men side. He re-writes the history of major weakness in middle distance free when he is the 1st to be Chinese WC finalist in 200m to 500m free. Since then, there are more and more promising middle distance free swimmers like Sun Yang, Zhang Enjian, Zu Lijun and Ren Chen coming to the scene and performing well. After losing to Park Tae Hwan badly in 2006 and 2007 WC, Zhang was trained under Dennis (Grant Hacket's former coach) in Australia and improved greatly since. He finally rose up to the occasion and won the 400m free silver in 2008 Olympics. His times this year have already showed sign he can do even better in WC. Don't underestimate Park who has been very low-key this year.
孙杨, Sun Yang (Zhejiang)
200m free: 1:48.35 (2009), 1:49.07 (2008)
400m free: 3:49.18 (2009), 3:47.33 (2008)
1500m free: 14:51.94 (2009), 14:48.39 (2008)
Another great long distance free talent after his compatriot Yu Cheng from Zhejiang province. He has shown his ability at the age of 17 when he swam into the Olympic final of 1500m free. Standing at more than 1.9m, he is the one to watch in 2012 and 2016. He also broke 4:20 in 400m IM (4:19.87) this year.
张国英, Zhang Guoying (Guangdong)
100m breaststrok: 1:01.15 (2009), 1:03.56 (2008)
王帅, Wang Shuai (Beijing)
100m breaststroke: 1:01.98 (2009), 1:03.72 (2008)
Both newcomers. Unheard of before 2009, Zhang pushed NR to 1:01 low from Xie Zhi's 1:01.63 last year. Zhang is another other fine breastroke swimmer Guangdong province has been fostering after Zeng, 100m breaststroke finalist in 1996 Olympics and silver medalist in 1998 WC. However, 10 years later, such improvement in NR seems insigificant compared to the rest of the world when more than 10 swimmers around the globe are able to swim sub 1:00. This time, Navy's Qu Jingyu was not selected although he came in 2nd in chinese Nationals with 1:01.16, just 0.01 behind Zhang.
周嘉威, Zhou Jiawei (Guangdong)
50m fly: 23.43 (2009)
100m fly: 52.44 (2009), 51.36s (2008)
He is the 1st Chinese man to swim below 53.0 (52.7 in 2005). Zhou has been around the top in domestic scene for more than 8-9 years but didn't compete much in major meet especially he was dropped from the 2008 Olympics team with no reasons given. About a month after the Olympics last year, he did 51.36 in 100m fly which ranked him 10th in the world. This year, he set the AR in 50m fly which ranked him no. 10 or 11 in the world all time list. However, he pulled out from the 100m fly final in Nationals due to injuries and this angered the head coach who said he will never be selected to the team. I understand his sentiments since Zhou hasn't contributed much for the national team. The only biggest success I can remember is gold in 50m fly in 2006 Asian Games. Nevertheless, his name appears in the list. Hopefully, he does appear in the Worlds. Zhou, himself, told the reporters after setting AR in 50m fly that he wants to do well in Worlds and at least once beat Michael Phelps before he retires. What a statement he made. and let's see.
石峰, Shi Feng (Liaoning)
100m fly: 51.68 (2008), 51.86 (2009)
More well-known to be fly swimmer compared to back swimmer, he has been a consistent performer since 2005 from 53 low to last year 51.68s in Olympics. Coached by Jin Wei, same coach as 2008 Olympic gold medalist in women's fly, Liu Zige, did another 51.86 this year. Last year, he almost made it to the Olympic final when he ranked 9 or 10th in the semi. Only 21, he is one to watch.
薛佳佳, Xue Jiajia (Beijing)
50m breaststroke: 27.94 (2009)
Unheard of before 2009. He finished behind Qu Jingyu (setting NR at 27.74) in 2009 Nationals.
陈寅, Chen Yin (HeBei)
200m fly: 1:56.84 (2009), 1:55.6 (2008)
A very consistent swimmer. Another top swimmer from Hebei province since Qian Hong, women's 100m fly Olympic champion in 1992. He was the finalist in 2007 Worlds. However, he has been overshadowded by Wu Peng in the recent years and he also said once during Nationals this year that he couldn't pace well in the race when Wu was not swimming in front of him. He also made a breakthrough in 100m fly that he dipped below 53s for the 1st time this year (52.99).
陈祚, Chen Zuo (Beijing)
100m free: 48.73 (2009), 49.06(2006), 49.08 (2008)
A leader-like swimmer in the team whose event is hard for him to succeed at the world level. His persistance really pays off. In the late 1990s, he is more a long distance free swimmer and he turned to 100m free swimmer in 2000, 2001. In 2001, he won NG title at only 50.92. At that time, any time below 51s was considered very good in China since the NR had stood at 50.51 since 1989. He and his teammates (including Huang Shaohua) improved a little by little over the years. In 2005, he broke 50s for the 1st time (49.56s) and set former AR at 49.06 in 2006. His 49.06 made him the 1st Chinese male to make world top 25 in the last 15 years. This year, he is 27 years old and he is at 48.73 (AR). He is one of the iconic swimmers who magnifests the evolution of this event in China. With all the suits and fierce competition in this event, it is still difficult for him to make impact in the world level unless he can hit a 47.
蔡力, Cai Li (Zhejiang)
50m free: 22.86 (2005), 22.50 (2008), 22.19 (2009)
100m free: 50.12 (2008), 49.15 (2009)
吕志武, Lu Zhiwu (Zhejiang)
50m free: 22.44 (2008), 22.24 (2009)
100m free: 50.08 (2007), 49.32 (2009)
史腾飞, Shi Tengfei (Beijing)
100m free: 49.25 (2008), 49.47 (2009)
Duo from Zhejiang alongside Beijing newcomer represent the new generation of Chinese male sprint free. Cai Li (22yo) has been the top 50m free swimmer since 2005 and took down the NR this year at 22.19s. Lu Zhiwu (20yo), also did well in 50m free when he swam 22.44 last year and did 22.24 this year (also below old NR). They both set pbs in 100m with 49.15 and 49.32, respectively this year. Shi did a fast 49.25s last year and settled at 49.47 this year. With all 4 sub-50s swimmers, there will be a chance to make to the relay final. Actually, the recent trend is quite promising for men's 100m free as for the last 2 years (2008-2009), there have been at least 8 sub-50s swimmers in China compared to none before 2005. Recently, Shi Runqiang also posted a fast 48.89s, the 2nd sub-49s performer in China.
刘维佳, Liu Weijia, Liaoning
400m IM: 4:20.05 (2003), 4:17.86 (2007), 4:18.41 (2008), 4:15.16 (2009)
Another top IM swimmer from Liaoning after Chen Yan, former women 400m IM WR holder and world champion. Liu was Olympian back in 2004 as a 15yo but did not make the team in 2008 although he was the only man who beat the A-qualifying mark. He was also once the NR holder in 200m breaststroke in 2005. However, he has not achieved much in the international swimming. From 2009, Liu has shown a great form. He did a Asian record (4:04.53) in 400m IM short course in Japan Open to defeat all the great IM swimmers from the host. Then, he also pulled another NR in long course (4:15.16) in April to erase Wu Peng's 7 year-old NR. To make to the Worlds final, he may need to go down to 4:12 or 4:11 which I don't think it is easy for him to slice another a few seconds off.
孙晗, Sun Han, Beijing
200m IM: 2:03.69 (2008)
辛桐, Xin Tong, Beijing
200m free: 1:50.37 (2008)
400m free: 3:52.20 (2008)
张宇, Zhang Yu, Beijing
200m back: 2:02/03
No idea why they were selected and obviously, they are not top 3 or 5 in China. The only similarity is that they are all from Beijing.
班豹, Ban Bao, Liaoning
汪一鸣, Wang Yiming, Anhui
200m fly
4th in recent Nationals. Coached by Olympic silver medalist, Jiao Liuyang's coach, Liu Haitao
男：21人
何建彬、程飞轶、吴鹏、张琳、孙杨、张国英、王帅、周嘉威、石峰、薛佳佳、陈寅、陈祚、蔡力、吕志武、史腾飞、刘维佳、孙晗、辛桐、张宇、班豹、汪一鸣；
女：25人
郭君君、哈斯楠、朱颖文、任珺妮、焦刘洋、徐妍玮、刘京、李佳星、庞佳颖、杨雨、高畅、赵菁、陈慧佳、王然迪、朱倩蔚、唐奕、孙晔、刘子歌、李哲思、周雅菲、于尧、洪文文、徐田龙子、白安琪、郑蓉蓉
It is not the best team for China but based on the NG strategy, it is considerably strong team. We also see some substitute swimmer for women side for all disciplines. The biggest names absent in the team include Qi Hui and Li Xuanxu from the women side. Qi did really well in April when she set pbs in 100m breast (1:06.69) and 200m IM (2:11.10) which ranked the highest among the Chinese this year. Especially for 1:06.69 in 100m breaststroke (not the mark 1:06.85 put in swimnews.com) which is her 1st sub-1:07 and was just 0.05s away from AR set by Luo Xuejuan back 2004 Olympics. She also won her pet event, 200m breaststroke in 2:24 in the Chinese Nationals. However, the new head coach, Mo Zhenjie, indicated his loss of confidence in Qi who has not performed well in the last few major meets including 2007 WC and 2008 Olympics. As a former WR holder (2:22.99) back in 2001, she never managed to win any long course world title (beween 2001 and 2007) or Olympic medal (2000, 2004 and 2008) which were taken into account. Her best results in WC is silver in 2001, bronze in 2003; and in Olympics is 4th in 2000 Olympics and 5th or 6th in 2004.
Li Xuanxu, rising like a rocket in the last 2 years, is just 15 years old. She has already established herself as a 800m NR holder (8:24) and finalists in 2 Olympic events (400m IM and 800m free). However, she was not selected to the team. No reason is given regarding her absence but I don't think it is due to injuries since she was competiting in the NG qualifier/national junior championships last week and she won the 200m IM in 2:14 which was considered not too bad since this is not her strongest event. One thing is kind of weird is that currently she is not competiting under any province or unit which is prerequisite for chinese athletes competiting domestically. No matter it is provincial team or army team, you need to choose one to compete. According to the past reports, her coach, Feng Zhen, used to coached in Liaoning province and then in Hunan Province where she selected Li. Somehow, they were then training in Guangdong province and competiting 2007 city games under Guangzhou city. And now, she is under "unattached" tag. Hopefully, she will not be another "Chen Yan" who suffered from stomach illness in most of her career and only allowed her hitting big in national games and 1 edition of WC.
Back to the list:
On men's side:
何建彬, He Jianbin (Guangdong)
100m back: 55.69 (2009), 57.03 (2008)
New comer
程飞轶, Cheng Feiyi (Liaoning)
100m back: 54.99 (2009), 56.88 (2008)
New comer
Since Ouyang Kunpeng's doping ban, China suddenly lost their no. 1 backstroke swimmer which makes this discipline even weaker in China. No other Chinese men other than Ouyang swum faster than 55.0 until Cheng who just barely dipped below 55.0 mark. This shows how weak in general the men's backstroke is in China. Unlike their neigbour, Japan, who now consistently have swimmers doing sub 55 and even sub 54. The prospect of these swimmers in WC was not optimistic.
吴鹏, Wu Peng
200m butterfly: 1:54.35 (2008)
He has been one of the iconic swimmers for breakthrough in Chinese men. Emerged in 2001 NG as a 14 year-old to win 200m fly in NR (1:58.89) and then won 3 golds (including defeat ing Yamamoto in 200m fly, AR in 400m IM and surprise win in 200m back) in 2002 Asian Games. Semifinalist in 2003 WC and finalist (6th) in 2004 Athens Olympics. The first male swimmer to win medal in 2 editions of WC (bronze in 2005 and silver in 2007). He tied 4th in Olympics. Unfortunately, he broke his arm this year and is still unable to get back to full training. It will be tough for him to do well in WC this summer.
张琳, Zhang Lin
200m free: 1:45.83 (2009), 1:47.63 (2008)
400m free: 3:42.63 (2009), 3:42.44 (2008)
1500m free: 14:47.51 (2009), 14:45.84 (2008)
Another icon of male improvement in Chinese swimming who won the history Olympic swimming medal on men side. He re-writes the history of major weakness in middle distance free when he is the 1st to be Chinese WC finalist in 200m to 500m free. Since then, there are more and more promising middle distance free swimmers like Sun Yang, Zhang Enjian, Zu Lijun and Ren Chen coming to the scene and performing well. After losing to Park Tae Hwan badly in 2006 and 2007 WC, Zhang was trained under Dennis (Grant Hacket's former coach) in Australia and improved greatly since. He finally rose up to the occasion and won the 400m free silver in 2008 Olympics. His times this year have already showed sign he can do even better in WC. Don't underestimate Park who has been very low-key this year.
孙杨, Sun Yang (Zhejiang)
200m free: 1:48.35 (2009), 1:49.07 (2008)
400m free: 3:49.18 (2009), 3:47.33 (2008)
1500m free: 14:51.94 (2009), 14:48.39 (2008)
Another great long distance free talent after his compatriot Yu Cheng from Zhejiang province. He has shown his ability at the age of 17 when he swam into the Olympic final of 1500m free. Standing at more than 1.9m, he is the one to watch in 2012 and 2016. He also broke 4:20 in 400m IM (4:19.87) this year.
张国英, Zhang Guoying (Guangdong)
100m breaststrok: 1:01.15 (2009), 1:03.56 (2008)
王帅, Wang Shuai (Beijing)
100m breaststroke: 1:01.98 (2009), 1:03.72 (2008)
Both newcomers. Unheard of before 2009, Zhang pushed NR to 1:01 low from Xie Zhi's 1:01.63 last year. Zhang is another other fine breastroke swimmer Guangdong province has been fostering after Zeng, 100m breaststroke finalist in 1996 Olympics and silver medalist in 1998 WC. However, 10 years later, such improvement in NR seems insigificant compared to the rest of the world when more than 10 swimmers around the globe are able to swim sub 1:00. This time, Navy's Qu Jingyu was not selected although he came in 2nd in chinese Nationals with 1:01.16, just 0.01 behind Zhang.
周嘉威, Zhou Jiawei (Guangdong)
50m fly: 23.43 (2009)
100m fly: 52.44 (2009), 51.36s (2008)
He is the 1st Chinese man to swim below 53.0 (52.7 in 2005). Zhou has been around the top in domestic scene for more than 8-9 years but didn't compete much in major meet especially he was dropped from the 2008 Olympics team with no reasons given. About a month after the Olympics last year, he did 51.36 in 100m fly which ranked him 10th in the world. This year, he set the AR in 50m fly which ranked him no. 10 or 11 in the world all time list. However, he pulled out from the 100m fly final in Nationals due to injuries and this angered the head coach who said he will never be selected to the team. I understand his sentiments since Zhou hasn't contributed much for the national team. The only biggest success I can remember is gold in 50m fly in 2006 Asian Games. Nevertheless, his name appears in the list. Hopefully, he does appear in the Worlds. Zhou, himself, told the reporters after setting AR in 50m fly that he wants to do well in Worlds and at least once beat Michael Phelps before he retires. What a statement he made. and let's see.
石峰, Shi Feng (Liaoning)
100m fly: 51.68 (2008), 51.86 (2009)
More well-known to be fly swimmer compared to back swimmer, he has been a consistent performer since 2005 from 53 low to last year 51.68s in Olympics. Coached by Jin Wei, same coach as 2008 Olympic gold medalist in women's fly, Liu Zige, did another 51.86 this year. Last year, he almost made it to the Olympic final when he ranked 9 or 10th in the semi. Only 21, he is one to watch.
薛佳佳, Xue Jiajia (Beijing)
50m breaststroke: 27.94 (2009)
Unheard of before 2009. He finished behind Qu Jingyu (setting NR at 27.74) in 2009 Nationals.
陈寅, Chen Yin (HeBei)
200m fly: 1:56.84 (2009), 1:55.6 (2008)
A very consistent swimmer. Another top swimmer from Hebei province since Qian Hong, women's 100m fly Olympic champion in 1992. He was the finalist in 2007 Worlds. However, he has been overshadowded by Wu Peng in the recent years and he also said once during Nationals this year that he couldn't pace well in the race when Wu was not swimming in front of him. He also made a breakthrough in 100m fly that he dipped below 53s for the 1st time this year (52.99).
陈祚, Chen Zuo (Beijing)
100m free: 48.73 (2009), 49.06(2006), 49.08 (2008)
A leader-like swimmer in the team whose event is hard for him to succeed at the world level. His persistance really pays off. In the late 1990s, he is more a long distance free swimmer and he turned to 100m free swimmer in 2000, 2001. In 2001, he won NG title at only 50.92. At that time, any time below 51s was considered very good in China since the NR had stood at 50.51 since 1989. He and his teammates (including Huang Shaohua) improved a little by little over the years. In 2005, he broke 50s for the 1st time (49.56s) and set former AR at 49.06 in 2006. His 49.06 made him the 1st Chinese male to make world top 25 in the last 15 years. This year, he is 27 years old and he is at 48.73 (AR). He is one of the iconic swimmers who magnifests the evolution of this event in China. With all the suits and fierce competition in this event, it is still difficult for him to make impact in the world level unless he can hit a 47.
蔡力, Cai Li (Zhejiang)
50m free: 22.86 (2005), 22.50 (2008), 22.19 (2009)
100m free: 50.12 (2008), 49.15 (2009)
吕志武, Lu Zhiwu (Zhejiang)
50m free: 22.44 (2008), 22.24 (2009)
100m free: 50.08 (2007), 49.32 (2009)
史腾飞, Shi Tengfei (Beijing)
100m free: 49.25 (2008), 49.47 (2009)
Duo from Zhejiang alongside Beijing newcomer represent the new generation of Chinese male sprint free. Cai Li (22yo) has been the top 50m free swimmer since 2005 and took down the NR this year at 22.19s. Lu Zhiwu (20yo), also did well in 50m free when he swam 22.44 last year and did 22.24 this year (also below old NR). They both set pbs in 100m with 49.15 and 49.32, respectively this year. Shi did a fast 49.25s last year and settled at 49.47 this year. With all 4 sub-50s swimmers, there will be a chance to make to the relay final. Actually, the recent trend is quite promising for men's 100m free as for the last 2 years (2008-2009), there have been at least 8 sub-50s swimmers in China compared to none before 2005. Recently, Shi Runqiang also posted a fast 48.89s, the 2nd sub-49s performer in China.
刘维佳, Liu Weijia, Liaoning
400m IM: 4:20.05 (2003), 4:17.86 (2007), 4:18.41 (2008), 4:15.16 (2009)
Another top IM swimmer from Liaoning after Chen Yan, former women 400m IM WR holder and world champion. Liu was Olympian back in 2004 as a 15yo but did not make the team in 2008 although he was the only man who beat the A-qualifying mark. He was also once the NR holder in 200m breaststroke in 2005. However, he has not achieved much in the international swimming. From 2009, Liu has shown a great form. He did a Asian record (4:04.53) in 400m IM short course in Japan Open to defeat all the great IM swimmers from the host. Then, he also pulled another NR in long course (4:15.16) in April to erase Wu Peng's 7 year-old NR. To make to the Worlds final, he may need to go down to 4:12 or 4:11 which I don't think it is easy for him to slice another a few seconds off.
孙晗, Sun Han, Beijing
200m IM: 2:03.69 (2008)
辛桐, Xin Tong, Beijing
200m free: 1:50.37 (2008)
400m free: 3:52.20 (2008)
张宇, Zhang Yu, Beijing
200m back: 2:02/03
No idea why they were selected and obviously, they are not top 3 or 5 in China. The only similarity is that they are all from Beijing.
班豹, Ban Bao, Liaoning
汪一鸣, Wang Yiming, Anhui
200m fly
4th in recent Nationals. Coached by Olympic silver medalist, Jiao Liuyang's coach, Liu Haitao
Friday, June 26, 2009
Zhang Lin had a good meet in Queensland winter SC
A group of swimmers including Olympic silver medalist, Zhang Lin, Xin Tong, Zhang Yu and Ren Chen were competiting in Queensland winter SC meet on Jun 20-21. Zhang won his pet events 200 (1:45.40) and 400m free (3:44. 77) in which were followed by his teammate Ren Chen (1:47.08 and 3:48.09), from Hebei province, if I am not wrong. Ren is the finalist of 1500m free in Word SC championships in 2006. Zhang Yu, backstroke specialist, has not shown the convincible form to compete in WC when he finished second in 200m back with 1:58.90. Xin Tong, shadowed by Zhang in Beijing team finished 1:49.46 in 200m free.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
After 2 years, all the old men's Chinese male national records were fallen in 2009
2 of the ancient (not so for some countries) national records in Chinese male swimming fell in the last 2 years:
100m breaststroke: One of the events have not been improved for more than 10 years. The old record was held by Guangdong's Zeng Qiliang at 1:01.66 set in 1997 Chinese national games. Zeng is also the first of few male Chinese to make to the final of Olympics (1996 at 1:02.01) and the 1st medalist in world championships (1998 in Perth, silver with a time of 1:01.76). He was still in sub 1:02 form before 2000. One of the greatest Chinese male swimmer in 1990s. Since 2000, no more sub 1:02 performance was swum until 2006 Asian championships in Singapore when Xie Zhi from Yunnan province did 1:01.9 and he managed to beat Zeng's record at1:01.63 last year. This year saw a breakthrough in national championships in April when top 3 finished sub 1:02 with Zhang Zhiying from Guandong Province swam 1:01.15 in the final and Qu Jingyu's 1:01.16 in semi. Qu is the former 200m IM NR holder at 2:00.59 in 2005. Ma Xiang from Tianjin also swam a swift 1:01.43 in Chinese Junior Championships in Tianjin this week. The world stadard has been raised too far up that even with all these improvement appear insignificant. Anyway, a small step at a time. Just get over 1:01 barrier 1st before thinking about 59s. Zhang has been selected to the WC team but I think provincial coaches won't shapen him to the top form for the WC due to NG coming up 2 months later.
50m free
A long-awaited NR (22.33) held by Jiang Chengji was finally conquered by three guys who has been all active in the domestic swimming for the last few years. Cai Li, Liu Runliang and Lu Zhiwu all took the record down in the same meet with 22.19 (final), 22.23 (semi) and 22.24 (semi). The toll has not been stopped when Liu just broke the record and also AR (22.18) this week with 22.13s which has not been known in most of the English media after I google searched. Liu was not selected to the WC team but Lu and Cai who are more experienced.
Anyway, good to see both records set before Y2K were broken.
On women side, the records before Y2k have not been broken are:
1. 50m free Le Jingyi 24.51, 1994
2. 400m free Chen Yan 4:05.00, 1997
3. 200m back He Cihong 2:07.40, 1994
4. 200m IM Wu Yanyan 2:09.72, 1997
5. 400m IM Chen Yan 4:34.79, 1997
The potential breakers for these events are
1. 50m free: (1) Zhu Yingwen who is 28 this year (which may be the last year of her career) still has excellent form. She was down the Le's 100m free last year to become the 1st sub-54s Asian woman but there is still one more mission to go. Actually, she was really close in 2005 at 24.58, just 0.07s away. Hopefully, she can do it before she hangs up her swim gear, (2) Li Zheshi still 14, 15 this year and she did 24.90 last year in Olympics and 24.94 this year. China also has their own Cate Campbell who can swim so fast at such young age in sprint free. For such swimmer, there are still a lot of variables for her to live up her potential. (3) Jiao Liuyang, not sure about her since this is not her main event but she dipped 24.98 this year. She has shown so much talent in butterfly and has already been on the right track so far. From 2005 to 2008 when she leaped from NG runnerup to Olympics runnerup in three years, who can underestimate her future in other events if she and her coach (Liu Haitao) are committed to.
2. 400m free: There are strings of names who may be able to achieve this feat but since they are still very young and most of them lack of major competition exposure, it is still a question mark for them. (1) Li Xuanxu: She has been the NR holder of 800m free and she did 4:07 last year and 4:06.8 this year. She is the steadiest among the other contender. However, she is only 15 this year and she has done tons of big meets (domestic and international). How she and her coach cope with such pressure and her physical side and also recovery will be tough to handle since she deals with all the long distance events including 400 and 800m free and also 400m IM. Hope she goes well. (2) Chen Qian: Not well known but she already did 4:06.09 this year but consistency has been demonstrated yet. (3) You Meihong: Li's teammate who did 4:07.8 in 2006 but did not improve since. She also did 8:31 in 800m so she is one to watch if she gets back on track. (4) Ren Junni, another 4:07.9 performaner this year. Little known for her. I also bet some of the more experienced swimmers in Zhejiang like Zheng Jing and Tang Jingzhi. There might be some surprising winner from Shanghai who do particularly well recently.
3. 200m back: (1) The top choice is definitely Zhao Jing who is already less than 0.5s from her senior's record. Zhao's target is definitely not just the NR but the AR set by Reiko Nakamura last summar. Luckily, Nakamura's record is also not far off Zhao's pb unlike Conventry's WR (2:05) which is still quite unreachable for her. This season also saw 3 sub 2:10 marks in the same meet when Zhou Yanxin and Bai Anqi who both made a breakthrough this year. Zhou who trained in Australia last year with her fellow backstroker, chen Wen, already showed sign of her rising last year when she did 2:11 in a couple of occasions. Bai Anqi, another up and coming swimmer finished 4th in AG in 2006 and has been wandering 2:11 and 2:12 for a few years. Both are (2) and (3) spots. (4) Liao Yali: Obviously, she is more for the service of her province. She surprised everyone by beating veteran Zhao Shu in 2005 NG in 2:10.8. This year, she is at 2:11. Who knows she might make a big pb in NG. The veterans might also be surprises: (5) Chen Yanyan: Multiple representatives of major games like Olympics and WC. Actually she is not particularly fast but very consistent around 2:11 for many years. She finally broke 2:11 in 2007 and has shown remarkable speed improvement in 100m back when she did 1:00.21 this year which is more than 1s faster than her previous best. (6) Zhao Shu: 2000 and 2004 Olympian and unlucky double silver medalists in 2 editions of NG (2001 and 2005). She might try everything to make this come true.
4. 200m IM: (1) With Qi Hui's improvement, this NR (and also AR) might be broken. Qi set another pb this year at 2:11.10, 1.4s away from Wu's record. Her strong leg is breastroke and she is also a pretty good freestyle swimmer so the determinant will be back and fly which are oppositely the strongest events of Wu. (2) Li Jiaxing: She has been pretty consistent for last few years with 2:12 in Olympics with another 2:12 this year. She is also strong in backstroke. (3) Liu Jing: She has been 2:15 swimmer for many years (since 2004 or 2005) but finally made a breakthru this year with top performance in 200m free and 200m IM.
5. 400m IM: Hard to break at this point: The closest might be (1) Li Xuanxu who did 4:37 in 2007, 4:36 in 2008 and (2) Qi Hui who consistently swam 4:38-4:39 region. Actually, there are a lot of potential sub 4-40 swimmers in China and I do not forsee they are able to capture Chen's AR.
100m breaststroke: One of the events have not been improved for more than 10 years. The old record was held by Guangdong's Zeng Qiliang at 1:01.66 set in 1997 Chinese national games. Zeng is also the first of few male Chinese to make to the final of Olympics (1996 at 1:02.01) and the 1st medalist in world championships (1998 in Perth, silver with a time of 1:01.76). He was still in sub 1:02 form before 2000. One of the greatest Chinese male swimmer in 1990s. Since 2000, no more sub 1:02 performance was swum until 2006 Asian championships in Singapore when Xie Zhi from Yunnan province did 1:01.9 and he managed to beat Zeng's record at1:01.63 last year. This year saw a breakthrough in national championships in April when top 3 finished sub 1:02 with Zhang Zhiying from Guandong Province swam 1:01.15 in the final and Qu Jingyu's 1:01.16 in semi. Qu is the former 200m IM NR holder at 2:00.59 in 2005. Ma Xiang from Tianjin also swam a swift 1:01.43 in Chinese Junior Championships in Tianjin this week. The world stadard has been raised too far up that even with all these improvement appear insignificant. Anyway, a small step at a time. Just get over 1:01 barrier 1st before thinking about 59s. Zhang has been selected to the WC team but I think provincial coaches won't shapen him to the top form for the WC due to NG coming up 2 months later.
50m free
A long-awaited NR (22.33) held by Jiang Chengji was finally conquered by three guys who has been all active in the domestic swimming for the last few years. Cai Li, Liu Runliang and Lu Zhiwu all took the record down in the same meet with 22.19 (final), 22.23 (semi) and 22.24 (semi). The toll has not been stopped when Liu just broke the record and also AR (22.18) this week with 22.13s which has not been known in most of the English media after I google searched. Liu was not selected to the WC team but Lu and Cai who are more experienced.
Anyway, good to see both records set before Y2K were broken.
On women side, the records before Y2k have not been broken are:
1. 50m free Le Jingyi 24.51, 1994
2. 400m free Chen Yan 4:05.00, 1997
3. 200m back He Cihong 2:07.40, 1994
4. 200m IM Wu Yanyan 2:09.72, 1997
5. 400m IM Chen Yan 4:34.79, 1997
The potential breakers for these events are
1. 50m free: (1) Zhu Yingwen who is 28 this year (which may be the last year of her career) still has excellent form. She was down the Le's 100m free last year to become the 1st sub-54s Asian woman but there is still one more mission to go. Actually, she was really close in 2005 at 24.58, just 0.07s away. Hopefully, she can do it before she hangs up her swim gear, (2) Li Zheshi still 14, 15 this year and she did 24.90 last year in Olympics and 24.94 this year. China also has their own Cate Campbell who can swim so fast at such young age in sprint free. For such swimmer, there are still a lot of variables for her to live up her potential. (3) Jiao Liuyang, not sure about her since this is not her main event but she dipped 24.98 this year. She has shown so much talent in butterfly and has already been on the right track so far. From 2005 to 2008 when she leaped from NG runnerup to Olympics runnerup in three years, who can underestimate her future in other events if she and her coach (Liu Haitao) are committed to.
2. 400m free: There are strings of names who may be able to achieve this feat but since they are still very young and most of them lack of major competition exposure, it is still a question mark for them. (1) Li Xuanxu: She has been the NR holder of 800m free and she did 4:07 last year and 4:06.8 this year. She is the steadiest among the other contender. However, she is only 15 this year and she has done tons of big meets (domestic and international). How she and her coach cope with such pressure and her physical side and also recovery will be tough to handle since she deals with all the long distance events including 400 and 800m free and also 400m IM. Hope she goes well. (2) Chen Qian: Not well known but she already did 4:06.09 this year but consistency has been demonstrated yet. (3) You Meihong: Li's teammate who did 4:07.8 in 2006 but did not improve since. She also did 8:31 in 800m so she is one to watch if she gets back on track. (4) Ren Junni, another 4:07.9 performaner this year. Little known for her. I also bet some of the more experienced swimmers in Zhejiang like Zheng Jing and Tang Jingzhi. There might be some surprising winner from Shanghai who do particularly well recently.
3. 200m back: (1) The top choice is definitely Zhao Jing who is already less than 0.5s from her senior's record. Zhao's target is definitely not just the NR but the AR set by Reiko Nakamura last summar. Luckily, Nakamura's record is also not far off Zhao's pb unlike Conventry's WR (2:05) which is still quite unreachable for her. This season also saw 3 sub 2:10 marks in the same meet when Zhou Yanxin and Bai Anqi who both made a breakthrough this year. Zhou who trained in Australia last year with her fellow backstroker, chen Wen, already showed sign of her rising last year when she did 2:11 in a couple of occasions. Bai Anqi, another up and coming swimmer finished 4th in AG in 2006 and has been wandering 2:11 and 2:12 for a few years. Both are (2) and (3) spots. (4) Liao Yali: Obviously, she is more for the service of her province. She surprised everyone by beating veteran Zhao Shu in 2005 NG in 2:10.8. This year, she is at 2:11. Who knows she might make a big pb in NG. The veterans might also be surprises: (5) Chen Yanyan: Multiple representatives of major games like Olympics and WC. Actually she is not particularly fast but very consistent around 2:11 for many years. She finally broke 2:11 in 2007 and has shown remarkable speed improvement in 100m back when she did 1:00.21 this year which is more than 1s faster than her previous best. (6) Zhao Shu: 2000 and 2004 Olympian and unlucky double silver medalists in 2 editions of NG (2001 and 2005). She might try everything to make this come true.
4. 200m IM: (1) With Qi Hui's improvement, this NR (and also AR) might be broken. Qi set another pb this year at 2:11.10, 1.4s away from Wu's record. Her strong leg is breastroke and she is also a pretty good freestyle swimmer so the determinant will be back and fly which are oppositely the strongest events of Wu. (2) Li Jiaxing: She has been pretty consistent for last few years with 2:12 in Olympics with another 2:12 this year. She is also strong in backstroke. (3) Liu Jing: She has been 2:15 swimmer for many years (since 2004 or 2005) but finally made a breakthru this year with top performance in 200m free and 200m IM.
5. 400m IM: Hard to break at this point: The closest might be (1) Li Xuanxu who did 4:37 in 2007, 4:36 in 2008 and (2) Qi Hui who consistently swam 4:38-4:39 region. Actually, there are a lot of potential sub 4-40 swimmers in China and I do not forsee they are able to capture Chen's AR.
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