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.