Chinese twin swimmers want Olympics medals to comfort quake-hit hometown

BEIJING, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Staring at taped videos of a training session beside the pool, the two girls looked attentive and serious.

"See here? Tingting, your legs were raised too early," said coach Masayo Imura, pointing to the screen, her voice firm, her look stern.

Such was a snapshot of the daily training of the Chinese synchronized swimmer twins, Jiang Wenwen and Jiang Tingting, from southwest China's Sichuan province. The girls' hometown was hit by a major earthquake in May in which more than 80,000 were dead or missing.

The sisters were in Beijing when the earthquake occurred and their families in Sichuan were unharmed. "We were lucky, but lots of the people in my hometown were not. We are training hard so that we can have good achievements to comfort them," said Wenwen.

Training nine to 10 hours in the water during the day, the 22-year-old are among Chinese best synchro swimmers and will lead China's medal quest at the Beijing Olympics.

China has never made the Olympic podium in the synchronized swimming, which was dominated by the United States when it was added at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and by Russia in the last two Games. Japan, Spain and Canada are also strong in the sport.

But the Jiang sisters have witnessed China's rising international status in the competition. In 2006, they dethroned longtime Asian champion Japan at the Doha Asian Games in both duet and team routines.

Months later, the swimmers made a historical fourth in team and duet competitions in the 2007 Melbourne World Championships. At an April Olympic qualifier event in Beijing, the Jiang twins held off the Japanese duo and won the silver of the duet.

"We are more sure of ourselves after these competitions. We are trying to improve execution and working on the difficult moves," said Tingting.

Tingting said she and her sister now eat three times more than ordinary people do and have gained more than five kilos since 2007. The added weight helped them to improve strength and stability in water.

The girls said they were grateful for their coach Imura for their achievements. "She is a very stringent coach, but she also takes very good care of us," said Wenwen at the April tournament.

Imura, 58, has coached Japan's synchro swimming team since 1978,helping her swimmers win eight Olympic medals over the past 30 years. She started to coach in China after the Doha Games.

Imura said the twins, among other swimmers, have improved markedly in strength, technique and speed in the past two years. The seasoned coach said she is determined to bring the girls to win a medal at the Olympics.

"We hope we can do better than the fourth in duet and team routines in the Melbourne World Championships last year," she said.