Beijing Olympic Games

Updated: 2007-09-28 From: Xinhuanet

CHONGQING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) — Pang Jiaying won the national title of women’s 200m freestyle in the way she had expected.

When she touched the wall first at 1 minute 58.34 seconds here on Thursday, she became the first Chinese swam under the Beijing Olympic A qualification standard in this event.

“I came here just for meeting the Olympic A qualification standard in the 200 meters freestyle, ” said a tired Pang. “I felt great after winning the 100 meters freestyle on Monday. Therefore, I was very confident in the 200 meters event.”

Pang’s national teammates Tang Yi and Yang Yu trailed behind at 2 minutes 0.48 seconds and 2 minutes 0.53 seconds respectively, both failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics with a more than one second gap.

Less than 20 minutes after her sprint in the four-lap race, Pang joined her national teammates to claim victory in the women’s 4×100 meters medley relay by clocking in 4 minutes 9.17 seconds.

The 22-year-old sprinter also swam a leg for the national team in both free relays and had booked a spot for the 100 meters freestyle at Beijing Olympics.

Wu Peng, 20, met no challenges in the men’s 200 meters butterfly race, pulling off the gold with a lackluster result of 1 minute 58.43 seconds, 3.52 seconds behind his personal best.

“I’m too tired to consider of the result. But I had never thought about losing the national title as long as I competed in the event,” said Wu.

The butterfly specialist clinched a silver at this year’s World Championships in a time of 55.13 seconds, 3.04 seconds behind American wunderkind Michael Phelps.

In the closing event of the last competition day at the national swimming meet, national record holder Zhang Lin failed to rein the men’s 1,500 meters freestyle, defeated by Sun Yang and Zu Lijun.

Zhang finished third at 15 minutes 24.49 seconds, almost 10 seconds behind Sun’s winning result of 15 minutes 14.99. Zu’s result was 15 minutes 19.85 seconds.

The six-day competition was this year’s last Olympic qualifying meet for the Chinese swimmers.

Besides Pang’s breakthrough in the women’s 200 meters freestyle, Liaoning native Shi Feng made a splash by winning the men’s 100 meters butterfly final at a result under the Olympic A qualification standard.

Since then, most of the young swimmers are slated to compete at the National City Games in Wuhan late October. Wu Peng and some other swimmers from the national team might go to the United States for training in November.

China got only one gold in swimming through efforts of breaststroke expert Luo Xuejuan at the 2004 Athens Olympics. At the 2005 and 2007 FINA World Championships, Chinese swimmers failed to bring back any gold.