Tough overseas training pays off for golden swimmers

Sending its best to the West has paid off for China's national swimming team, which has reaped golden performances at the ongoing world championships.

An ambitious program has sent the country's elite swimmers overseas to train under renowned foreign coaches. The payoff has been seen since Sunday with Sun Yang and Xu Jiayu bagging gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships in Hungary.

Xu, 22, claimed China's first men's 100-meter backstroke world championship gold after clocking 52.44 sec in the final of the sprint event, a physically demanding category long dominated by Western swimmers, on Tuesday in Budapest.