Teenager Zhang Lin from Beijing took two gold medals in the men's 400m and 200m freestyle events at the ongoing 10th Chinese National Games, reviving China's chances of making podium in men's swimming at Beijing Olympics.

Within two days at the tenth games, the biggest ever in the history of the quadrennial event, Zhang, 18, was crowned in 400m freestyle in a time of 3 minutes 51.32 seconds and touched home first in 200m freestyle on 1 minute 49.36 seconds.

Zhang finished eighth in 200m freestyle at Montreal World Championship, which was a breakthrough for Chinese men's swimming at international events. Zhang, the national 400m freestyle holder,had broken the national records twice in 400m freestyle in the last two years.

The time of 3 minute 51.32 seconds for 400m freestyle was enough for him to win at nationals, but was not enough for him to be excited. "I am not satisfied with the time and I think I should have a better result,"said Zhang on Friday after winning the event.

Zhang, a shy boy with a 1.87m-tall figure, is a no-nonsense, hard-working and gentle swimmer as his kindergarten coach Li Xiaona defined. "I have trained a lot of children, but there are not many children being so plain and hard-working like Zhang. He has taken quite a few national titles and started to make impact internationally, but he did not like to match others in terms of the living style," said Li. "He is quite self-disciplined and never slack off against coach's instructions."

Zhang came in seventh at the 200m freestyle semifinal with a time of 1:48.10 in Montreal, rewriting the Asian record and reaching the final, which was the first time for a Chinese swimmer."I was surprised to see my time and it's out of my expectation to finish second in the heat with Michael Phelps,"said Zhang.

Zhao Ge, the head coach of the Chinese national team, has deemed highly of Zhang for his remarkable display at Montreal. "It's surprising to see this result and his fighting spirit also impressed me very much," said Zhao.

While he was still five years old, Zhang started swimming training in 1994 in Beijing's amateur sports school of Haidian district.

He was promoted to Beijing municipality team six years later before progressing to become a member of the national team in 2002.