Chinese butterflyer in leisure prior to duel with Phelps
12/8/2008 17:07
Wu Peng, popularly regarded as China's best Olympic swimming hope, said he
was in an easy mind and would adjust himself to the best form before his race
against American sensation Michael Phelps.
"Thanks to my buddy Zhang Lin. He
has accomplished the mission to earn China the first Olympic medal for men's
(swimming) team. It's great relief to me since I was also widely expected to
fulfill that objective," Wu said after a semifinal for the men's 200m butterfly
race this morning.
The 21-year-old Zhang won the silver of men's 400 meters
freestyle in 3:42.44 in Beijing on Sunday, only 0.58 seconds slower than gold
medalist South Korean Park Taehwan. Prior to Zhang's silver, the fourth position
in the 50m freestyle won by Jiang Chengji in Atlanta 1996 was the best result by
Chinese male swimmer at the Olympic Games.
As a 14-year-old lad, Wu grabbed
two golds at the ninth Chinese National Games in 2001. One year later, the
teenager defeated more heralded Japanese to bag home three golds from the 200m
butterfly, the 400m individual medley and the 200m backstroke at the Asian
Games.
In last year's Melbourne World Championships, Wu was second only to
American phenom Michael Phelps, who keeps the event's world record at
1:52.09.
He also created his personal best of 1:54.82 at a national Olympic
trials competition in March.The clocking could have placed him fifth in the
event's world ranking this year.
Wu swam at 1:54.93, 1.23 seconds slower than
Phelps did at the semifinal, and 2.84 seconds than the world record possessed by
Phelps.
"Although I intended to reserve my strength for final, I felt
unsatisfied with my performance this morning, half a second slower than I
previously expected," Wu said, explaining that he failed to recover completely
from last evening's heats and had a bad sleep last night.
The gulf of over 2
seconds seems to be formidable for Wu to challenge Phelps. The Chinese said that
he was in full awareness that his personal best couldn't ensure him a
medal.
"I hope I can swim at one minute and 54 seconds or so and be among the
guys who stand on the podium tomorrow," Wu said.
"This boy has strong nerves
and was born for big events like Olympic Games. As the competitors become
stronger, Wu gets stronger," said Wu's coach Zhu Zhigen, adding that he was very
confident that Wu's performance at the final tomorrow would be much
improved.
Xinhua
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