Chinese men's swimming at the Olympic level is in trouble but the women look good.

China just finished it's national championships and it was ugly. Only five Chinese men made the Olympic standard. Snippet from the article:

• The national championships were meant to begin a confidence-building process leading up to the 2008 Games, but national coach Zhang Yadong said he saw little to celebrate. [Link]
  

Though this is really bad news for the Chinese men's team, there is something very impressive about this Chinese team. Snippet from the article:

• Not a single registered Chinese swimmer failed a doping test in 2006 despite a marginal increase in test numbers, local media reported on Wednesday.

• None of the 922 tests on 456 swimmers, both in and out of competition, turned out positive, the China Daily said, citing swimming officials. [Link]

With better nutrition, training, and free speech rights, I expect the Chinese to dominate this sport due to their shear population numbers; (See photo above), but all three suggestions would have to be implemented though.

On the Women's side all looks potentially gold. The Chinese women's team qualified for every event save for the 200 free. a standout was a 13-year-old girl named Li Xuanxu. She looks good in the IM. [Link]


Scott Brings up a good point!

Scott said...

The major handicap the less developed nations have in producing world class swimmers is the lack of available pools for the general population. With fewer pools fewer people swim and the population base from which to draw elite swimmers becomes correspondingly smaller. Building swimming pools is very expensive which is why the United States has been a perennial powerhouse in world swimming - it has the most pools per capita of any country in the world by far. China will take a long time to get even close. So these results are to be expected for a country which isn't into wholesale cheating (questions could be raised about why the women have done so much better than the men though).