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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Post a Comment