Most Chinese national swimmers felt relieved two years ago when they were not obliged to the call of competing in the University Games any more, giving way to more athletes from the college teams to take part in the Universiade.

 

They began, however, to feel uneasy about the decision to give up the Universiade as more delegations in the Bangkok Universiade brought their best swimmers to make the swimming competition a preparation of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

 

The Chinese, who won two swimming gold medals in the 2005 Izmir Universiade, pocketed none this time, and had no contribution to the 30 new Games records out of the 40 events in the pool in the six-day competitions.

 

"The (swimming competitions of) Bangkok University Games are in a very high level. I didn't expect it so competitive before I came here," Japanese coach Hiroaki Kaneko said.

 

Japan, who had five gold, eight silver and two bronze, brought a team of 36 members, with 19 of them having podium finishing in world-level competitions.

 

World-record holder Yana Klochkova of Ukraine came out from half-retirement to win the women's 400m individual medley here, bringing in the hope that the "Medley Queen" is preparing for a comeback in the Beijing Games.

 

Another world-record holder Britta Steffen of Germany and Olympic 4x100m freestyle relay champion Alice Mills of Australia competed in the women's 100m freestyle event in Bangkok, finishing with gold and bronze respectively.

 

Oleg Lisogor of Ukraine proved he is still the fastest 50m breaststroke swimmer in the world by bettering the Games record to 27.63 seconds, 0.45 seconds short of his world record.

 

"We have couples of world-record holders, world champions and Olympic gold medalists here. This is the best swimming competitions I've ever seen in the Universiade history," Chinese swimming team coach Pan Jiazhang said.

 

Mark Schubert, head coach and general manager of the US swimming national team and also the head coach of the US Universiade swimming team, had a abundant 40-plus-swimmer squad in Bangkok.

 

"Nobody is going to know until the results next year which of these three teams is the best," Schubert had said when the US decided to send three teams for the FINA World Championships (March 25-April 1, Melbourne, Australia), Pan American Games (July 17-22, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and the Bangkok Universiade respectively last year.

 

"Now I think the three have the same importance," Schubert said during the Bangkok Games here.

 

China had planned to bring more top swimmers to Bangkok, but world champoins Zhou Yafei and Yang Yu pulled out due to injuries which they feared to hinder them for the Japanese Swimming Internationals on August 21.

 

Xu Yanwei, Athens Olympic silver medalist, finished with a bronze in the women's 100m butterfly and two silver medals in the 100m and 200m freestyle relays.

 

"I didn't prepare for the Universiade. My concern is on the Japanese Internationals after the Games here," Xu said after the butterfly final.

 

"We cannot form more than one national team, as the US and Japan did, and most of the swimmers have to compete in many events of one tournament. We are a long way back to the world swimming leading countries," Chinese swimming team manager Zhang Han said.

 

With one year out to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese swimming is already one step backward to most of its opponents.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 15, 2007)