SHAOXING, Zhejiang Province -- Wu Peng, flag bearer of Chinese swimming, aims at breaking the Asian record of the men's 200 meters butterfly at the national Olympic trials which kicks off here Sunday evening.
As the 200 meters butterfly runner-up to American wunderkind Michael Phelps at last year's World Aquatic Championships in Melbourne, Australia, the 21-year-old Chinese is expected to make a bigger splash in this summer's Olympics.
Wu, whose personal best stands at one minute 54.91 seconds, had revealed his ambition of smashing the Asian record of 1:54.56 seconds held by Japanese veteran Takashi Yamamoto at the national City Games last October, and he kept confident ahead of the national Olympic trials.
"I performed well during training in the last few months," said Wu on Saturday. "Recently, foreign swimmers had broken world records one by one, and I'm hoping to make a hit at this meet. I believe I could rewrite the Asian record of 200 meters butterfly as long as I swim normally."
Besides the ambitious Wu, Chinese top male freestyler Zhang Lin is becoming more competitive after three-month training in Australia under the guidance of Denis Cotterell, former coach of long-distance king Grant Hackett.
Zhang excited the home crowd at the China Open swimming meet this February with national record breaking performance in the 400 meters freestyle final. The result of 3:45.04 could even brought him the silver medal from last year's world championships.
Zhang's coach Chen Yinghong noted as long as Zhang could swim according to his own style and pace, his results at Shaoxing would not be disappointing.
As for the once prolific women's swimming team of China, leading breaststroker Qi Hui seemed to be recovering from a long period of downturn, winning two golds and achieving three results within the Olympic qualifying A standards at this year's China Open.
Qi experienced a waterloo defeat at the 2007 worlds after "using an unsuccessful training method" as she said, and disappeared from the competitive swimming for almost a whole year.
Although the 23-year-old Qi still needs to enhance her chances of stepping onto the podium at the Beijing Olympics, she had showed her capability by swimming world top four results in 200 meters breaststroke, 200 meters and 400 meters individual medley.
In addition, promising butterflier Jiao Liuyang kept improving in the 200 meters race.
The international rookie finished fourth at last year's world championships in 2:07.22, 0.32 second behind the bronze medallist Otylia Jedrzejczak from Poland. Then she created her career best of 2:07.06 at the Japan Open, becoming the fifth fastest swimmer in the event last year.
A total of 374 swimmers from all part of China are slated to compete in 32 Olympic events at the national swimming championships also served as Olympic trials.
