China

Jiao storms 100m butterfly in world No.1 time

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-04-26 10:09
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SHAOXING, East China - Chinese Olympic silver medalist Jiao Liuyang swept the women's butterfly by taking her third gold in the 100 meters in a world No. 1 time so far this year at the Chinese National Swimming Championships here on Sunday.

Fourteen-year-old girl Ye Shiwen clocked a world No.2 result in the 200m individual medley.

Jiao, 200m butterfly runner up at the Beijing Olympic Games and 100m bronze medal at the Rome World Championships last August, led the 100m in a time of 57.67 seconds, 0.04 seconds faster than the previous top-ranked Stephanie Rice of Australia who swam in March.

The 19-year old Jiao said: "I felt tired since I'd competed four events in four days. I'm in the transition of improving techiniques, so everyday I have a new understanding of the strokes."

Jiao wrapped up two golds over the 200m, world best time this year and 50m butterfly during the national meet while the Olympic champion Liu Zige did not show up at the meet.

In the women's 200m individual medley, Ye Shiwen of Zhejiang came back from behind to surprisingly lift the title in 2:10.32. Her split was 29,32, the slowest butterfly perform among the 8 finalist, 1:02.85, fourth after the backstroke turn and led the field 1:41.39 into the last 50m.

The 17-year Wang Qun of Shandong swam her personal best in 2:11.26 and the 20-year-old Liu Jing of Beijing came to 2:12.83.

Ye's result could rank her the second fastest on the world ranking, just behind Aussie Stephanie Rice 2:10.07. She came to third in the 400m medley earlier of the meet in 4:37.97 which ranked her the seventh in the world.

The women's 50m backstroke saw two champions as Zhao Jing and Gao Chang tied the first place in 27.72, beating Xutian Longzi of Chinese Army into third 28.50.

Jiang Haiqi of Shanghai dominated the men's 100m freestyle in 50.16; Li Zhesi of Liaoning crowned in the women's 50m freestyle 25/11, Qu Jingyu of Chinese Navy collected men's 50m breaststroke gold and Shanghai won the women's 4X100m freestyle relay.

The five-day national meet will come to an end on April 26.