China Keen To Keep It Clean
2008-04-01
Craig Lord
hinese officials have been at pains to point out the cleanliness of its team at Olympic trials: no positives were recorded in 2007; Peng joins pledge to swim pure and clocks 1:54.82 China record 200 'fly

Shaoxing, East China: Chinese officials have been at pains to point out the cleanliness of its team at Olympic trials. No positives were recorded in 2007, something of a relief no doubt after the welter of more than 40 positives in the 10 years from 1994 to 2004.    

 A total of 1,105 tests, about 11.39 percent more than those in 2006, were conducted on 481 swimmers by the Chinese anti-doping authorities last year, said Li Hua, director of the Chinese Swimming Administrative Center, at the Chinese Swimming Anti-Doping Conference.    

 The tests included 697 random tests, 340 in-competition tests, 60 blood tests and eight open water tests. The number of swimmers who took the tests made up 34.26 percent of all registered swimmers in China, Li said.     

In addition, 32 Chinese swimming athletes took dope tests performed by the international governing swimming body FINA and the World Anti-Doping Agency, totaling 52 times.    

 Li called on all swimmers and their coaches to redouble efforts in anti-doping work in the leading up to the Beijing Games. He said the Chinese swimming squad shall present a clean competition in front of a home crowd. Music to swimming ears.

The threat is national: any team to return one positive now or in the build up to Beijing 2008 will receive a team-wide ban of eight years, it was announced at the hour and a half-long anti-doping conference.    

 Wu Peng, world silver medallist behind Michael Phelps in the 200m butterfly last year, also made a solemn pledge at the press conference staged at the trials.  'All swimmers must be clean and honest at the Beijing Games. Only through hard training and confidence can we achieve our best in the Beijing pool' he said before clocking a China record of 1:54.82 in heats of the 200m butterfly.     

Liu Peng, head of the General Administration of Sport of China, warned that Chinese sports team would suffer a catastrophic blow if a single Chinese athlete was test positive at the Beijing Olympics.

The trials, meantime, witnessed a 400m medley victory from 14-year-old Li Xuanxu, ahead of Asian Games champion Qi Hui, 4:39.07 to 4:39.64. Li had trailed breaststroke specialist Qi going into freestyle before taking the lead down the last 50m. At the Chinese City Games last October, Li clocked 4:37.56.

Elsewhere, the men's 200m backstroke went to Ouyang Kunpeng in 1:59.51, and the women's equivalent went to Zhao Jing, of Hubei, in 2:08.41, ahead of Zhou Yanxin, Shanghai, on 2:11.58, locking out Chen Yanyan, of Guangdong, 2:11.81 (not to be confused with the banned Chen Yan). The men's 200m freestyle went to Zhang Lin, Beijing, in 1:47.63.