Top Chinese swimmers for Afro-Asian Games

China will field a seven-strong team in the Afro-Asian Games swimming competition, which will be held at the Swarnandhra Pradesh Swimming Complex from October 25 to 30. All seven are medallists from the 2002 Busan Asian Games.

Chen Zuo, the 100m freestyle gold medallist with a time of 50.76 seconds in Busan, will spearhead the Chinese challenge and will come to Hyderabad after sweeping four titles in China's National Championship in Zhangjiagang last month.

The 21-year-old won the 50m in Zhangjiagang in a time of 23.01 seconds, the 100m in 50.71 seconds and 200m freestyle in 1:50.88. He was also a member of the victorious Beijing 4 x 200m freestyle relay team.

The other gold medallist from the Busan Games in the squad is 21-year-old Chen Hua, winner of the women's 800m freestyle with a new Asian record of eight minutes 24.36 seconds.

Chen has been a multiple short course world champion. In the Afro-Asian Games, she will also compete in the 400m freestyle, in which she won a silver medal in Busan and gold four years earlier in Bangkok.

Busan Games' silver medallists Lin Yi (100m freestyle) and Zong Qiliang (100m breaststroke), bronze medallists Li Jin (men's 200m butterfly Zhou Xiaowei (women's 50m freetsyle) and Quyang Kunpeng (women's 100m backstroke) are the others in the fray.

Zhou won the 50m freestyle silver in the recent National Championship.

Li Jin_s presence should inspire National champion Rehan Poncha to pursue his dream of securing a berth in the 200m Athens Olympic Games. The Olympic qualifying mark is 2:04.56 and his best so far has been 2:08.05.

Shikha Tandon, the only Indian swimmer to meet the Athens Olympics qualifying mark, and Richa Mishra, the star of last year's National Games, will be in the forefront of the Indian challenge. The 18-year-old Tandon set a National record of 26.61 seconds in the National championship in Kolkata last month and clocked 58.36 seconds when she swam the first leg of the 4x100m freestyle relay at the World Championships in June.

Meanwhile, Nachaev Ravil of Uzbekistan also confirmed his participation. Ravil won a silver medal in 50m freestyle in the Busan Asian Games.