China's best freestyler Zhang pursues Olympic medal

SHAOXING, East China, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Lin swam confidently here on Thursday to refresh his own national record of the men's 400 meters freestyle, a step closer to his Olympic medal winning dream.

Meanwhile, a younger hopeful Sun Yang wept for failing to challenge Zhang at the Chinese national swimming Olympic trials.

The 21-year-old Zhang, making obvious progress after three-month training in Australia since last November, improved the national best to three minutes 44.97 seconds in Thursday's final, as Sun, 17, touched the wall second more than three second slater.

"I had expected the national record breaking result today, as I improved a lot after training abroad," said Zhang calmly.

This result put Zhang on the second place in this year's world rankings, only after American veteran Erik Vendt in 3:44.56, but better than European champion Yuri Prilukov in 3:45.10.

However, Zhang believed that he had no time for a rest ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.

"In my opinion, this result is not fast enough to grab a medal at the Olympics," explained Zhang. "I look forward to rewriting the record again and again in the following four months."

Zhang's archrival Park Tae Hwan hasn't appeared in any major competitions this year, but keeps threatening with the world champion winning time of 3:44.30, which the Republic of Korea's teenager established last year in Melbourne, Australia.

Standing next to Zhang on the podium, the Zhejiang native Sun could not stop shedding tears with a silver medal on his neck.

"I intended to challenge Zhang in the final but failed, and I didn't improve my personal best as I had expected," said Sun, who was 0.93 seconds behind his career best of 3:47.33, which he set at the Olympic test meet China Open in February.

Sun, in a height of 1.98 meter, stormed onto the national scene last year as a strong challenger to China's top freestyler Zhang. He even beat Zhang in the 1,500 meters race at the national championships in Chongqing last September.

Although the teenager's personal best could place eighth in this year's world rankings, Sun was upset for not swimming under the bar of 3:47.00.

"I still had problems in strength and skills during today's race," said Sun. "I should have swum faster. Zhang performed really well in the final."

Wiping up the tears on his face, Sun revealed that his dream of racing into the final in the event at the 2008 Olympic Games.

As for Zhang, he said his expectation was exactly the same as that of Chinese swimming's flag bearer Wu Peng, who said he was keen to becoming the first Chinese male swimmer standing on the Olympic podium.