Chinese woman swimmer Luo Xuejuan made a breakthrough by winning the country's first ever breaststroke swimming world title at the 9th World Swimming Championships Monday in Japan.
Making her world championships debut in the Fukuoka event, the 17-year-old from east China's Zhejiang Province clocked a championships record and this year's world's best time of one minute 7.18 seconds in winning the 100 meters breaststroke event. She had set a meet record of 1:07.48 in the event's heats here on Sunday.
The best previous Chinese performance in breaststroke swimming at world championships was a 2-3 finish in the 100m event and a silver medal in the 200m event, during the 1994 world championships in Rome.
Australian Leisel Jones finished second in 1:07.96 and Hungarian Agnes Kovacs was third in 1:08.50, at the Fukuoka event on Monday.
"I am not satisfied with my performance today as pace at the first half was not as fast as I'd planned," Luo said after her victory. "My intention was to swim under 1:07.00 but actually I swam slower," she said.
"I was nervous today and I didn't sleep well last night," she admitted.
"The introduction of the 50m event (breaststroke) at the world championships is good for me as I'm good at shorter distance. I'm confident to give a best shot at the 50m event (on Friday)," she added.
Luo was also to compete in the 200m breaststroke and 4x100m medley relay events.
(People's Daily 07/24/2001)
