Chinese World Championship team
China has selected its team for the FINA World Championships in Barcelona next month. The team blends youth and experience and as well as the established names, many eyes will be on Wu Peng (15) who already swims 4:15 (400 I.M.) and 1:56 for the men's 200 fly, plus Zhang Tianyi, who as a 12 year old girl on the last World Cup circuit swam 4:35 for the 400 I.M. WOMEN: Chen Hua, Chen Xiujun, Cheng Jiaru, Cui Li, Luo Nan, LuoXuejuan, Pang Jiaying, Qi Hui, Tang Jingzhi, Wu Binan, Xu Yanwei, Yang Yu, Zhan Shu, Zhang Tianyi, Zhang Yan, Zheng Xi, Zhou Yafei, Zhu Yingwen. MEN: Chen Zuo, Huang Shaohua, Jin Hao, Liu Yu, Ouyang Kunpeng, Wang Haibo, Wu Peng, Yu Cheng, Yu Rui, Zeng Qiliang, Zhang Lin, Zhao Tao, Zheng Huazhang, Zheng Kunliang.

Olympic aquatic centre set to be built regardless
The engineering trade journal 'New Civil Engineer' has reported that London will show its Olympic intent with an early start for an Olympic aquatics centre. Construction of a new £59M swimming complex for the 2012 Olympics will start next year even though a decision on whether Britain will host the games is not expected until 2005, the government said this week. A decision to award London the Games is expected to trigger a £403M sports facilities construction programme. Culture secretary Tessa Jowell announced last week that London would bid to host the 30th Olympiad. Start of work on the swimming complex is intended to show the International Olympic Committee that Britain is serious, a Department for Culture Media & Sport (DCMS) spokesman confirmed. The project includes a new 50m swimming pool and diving pools. "There's an assumption that in addition to straight bid costs we will build the 50m pool" said the DCMS. Bidding for the Games - including master-planning the derelict Stratford site and detailed design of sports venues, accommodation and new transport links - is expected to cost between £16M and £17M. The swimming complex will be owned by sports promotion body the English Institute of Sport, whether the Olympics goes ahead or not. In January members of parliament’s culture, media and sport select committee said that a UK Olympic bid would be undermined by a series of high profile projects that had been mishandled. These include failure to deliver the planned national athletics arena at Pickett’s Lock in east London, ham fisted management of the Millennium Dome, and the stop-start farce ahead of the eventual construction of the new Wembley Stadium. New Civil Engineer Journal Link

Netherlands names initial team for World Champs
Follwoing the completion of the National Championships last week, the Royal Dutch Swimming Federation has announced its team for the World Championships in Barcelona this July. WOMEN: Inge de Bruijn, Marleen Veldhuis, Chantal Groot, Madelon Baans, Hinkelien Schreuder, Manon van Rooijen, Annabel Kosten. MEN: Pieter van den Hoogenband, Joris Keizer, Klaas Erik Zwering, Thijs van Valkengoed, Johan Kenkhuis, Sander Ganzevles, Martijn Zuijdweg, Arnold van Bavel, Thomas Felten, Ewout Holst. In preparation for these championships, the team will go to the Mare Nostrum meets in Monaco and Barcelona. The following seven swimmers have a second chance to qualify for the relays at the Worlds during the Mare Nostrum Tour: Suze Valen, Celina Lemmen, Haike van Stralen, Inge Dekker, Robin van Aggele, Gijs Damen, Mark Veens.

Thorpe and Callus pull out of Duel in the Pool!
Australian Swimming today announced the withdrawal of Ian Thorpe and Ashley Callus from the April 6 Duel In The Pool against the USA on medical grounds. High Performance Director Greg Hodge made the announcement at a press conference in Sydney. Hodge said: “I need to announce today that unfortunately Ian Thorpe and Ashley Callus have had to withdraw from the Duel Meet on medical grounds. Australian Swimming is fully away of the medical situations regarding these athletes and fully supports their decision. This decision is about their short term health and their long term performances at the World Championships and in Athens next year. We certainly don’t want them to be putting their health and therefore their future preparations at risk. I can’t say strongly enough how much we support, endorse and respect the decision they’ve made. It’s been made on good medical grounds with the full support of their doctors. They are terrific team players, these two guys, and for them to withdraw from a national team activity is a big step. For them also to come out and lay their cards on the table and say they’ve been sick, it demonstrates the esteem with which they hold their team and their team members, that they are prepared to actually put their medical history here out in the public eye when it would not normally happen.”

Australian team doctor Jeni Saunders described Thorpe’s condition as “a serious illness” contracted earlier this year on his return from Europe. “He’s missed a fair bit of training from that and we’ve been monitoring his progress through this meet very closely,” Dr Saunders said. “Because of those processes we’ve put in place we felt that he wasn’t recovering appropriately and that to travel to compete at this stage would be disadvantageous to his recovery. We’ve been looking at a range of things like blood pressure and pulse rates, and morning heart rates, which we do each time Ian races, knowing what he’d normally do because we have the data. We never identified the actual viral element but we did identify the actual illness, though I won’t say what it was to protect Ian’s privacy. He showed the symptoms on his return from Europe."

QAS doctor June Canavan has been monitoring Callus’ illness since last November. “His blood tests were abnormal then and certainly fitted the picture he’d described, and we’ve been monitoring him very closely. He’s certainly been compromised going into this meet and my advice is that he really shouldn’t travel, across the time-zone particularly, and he should come back to Queensland,” Dr Canavan said.

Thorpe said he was disappointed at having to make such a crucial decision, but had no alternative but to follow the medical advice. Thorpe said: “For myself it’s very disappointing that I don’t have the opportunity to go away with the Australian team and compete against the Americans in this event. It would have been wonderful to go but I think I’ve made the best decision for my preparation for the World Championships. Every symptom that you could possibly have to any illness, I had with this. When I came back from Europe it was quite severe and I was very concerned about whether or not I’d be able to get over it in a short period of time." Thorpe missed almost a week of training and will spend the next two weeks “doing absolutely nothing.” Ashley Callus said he loved travelling with the Australian team and swimming against the Americans. “Swimming on the Australian team, it’s what I really love to do, but I’ve got to get over this thing first and hope to shape up for Barcelona and do my very best there,” said Callus.

German sport criticises Gulf War
Following the first weekend of war in the Middle East, German sport stars from Formula 1, soccer, athletics and swimming have expressed criticism concerning the events in the region. Europe's best ever female swimmer, Franziska Van Almsick, noted a clear position against the fighting: "I am quite disappointed by the American government policy. It supersedes the international law and it seems there's nothing we can do." To date, over 300 Iraqi and Syrian civilians are thought to have been killed since war broke out last week.

British Nationals summary
Britain’s leading swimmers booked their places to July’s World Championships in Barcelona with a series of record breaking performances in Sheffield at the Nationa Championships last week. Top billing went to Portsmouth’s Katy Sexton who broke two Commonwealth records and set new British records in the 100m and 200m backstroke. Fighting off strong opposition in the 200m event from Sarah Price, who won gold in the 50m race, Sexton beat the Commonwealth record held by Australian Nicole Stevenson with a time of 2:09.27. A delighted Katy Sexton was pleased with her weekend’s performances: “I can’t believe it. I’ve just been swimming so well all week and have two Commonwealth and British records to show for it.”

A second Commonwealth record to fall came in the 100m breaststroke which saw Darren Mew, who won the 50m event pitted against James Gibson, who took silver in the same race. After setting the early pace Gibson fought off a strong challenge from Mew at the finish to win in a time of 1:00.47, beating his previous Commonwealth and British record of 1:00.69. Mew settled for silver in 1:00.74. There was a close finish in the women’s 100m breaststroke as Jaime King beat the British record by 0.01 snatching first place in 1:09.00 from the previous record holder Rachel Genner who took silver.

Scotland’s Graeme Smith swam to a hat-trick of titles in the long distances events, adding the 800m to the 400m and 1500m gold’s he won over the weekend. A feat echoed by another Scot in the women’s long distances events after Glasgow’s Rebecca Cooke repeated the clean sweep she achieved in the Commonwealth Games last summer. Mark Foster led from the start to win his 50m freestyle gold despite complaining his performance was well below par. Elsewhere Steve Parry dominated the 200m butterfly, Alex Savage won a closely fought women’s 100m butterfly and Gregor Tait won the 100m backstroke, but only after he had lost out to James Goddard in the 200 back with both swimmers under the previous British record mark and Goddard edging the win in 1:58.65.

Performance Director Bill Sweetenham was pleased with the improvements on last year’s event and but stressed again there was still a long way to go. “A lot of guys this week are moving up. We’ve still got a long way to go however and there is no room for complacency. We have got to be superior in every possible way. I think it’s going to take five or six years to be where we want to be. But if we continue with the same team inspired attitudes I believe Britain can be as good or better than any national swim team in the world.” British swimmers will have a second opportunity to qualify for the World Championships in June at the Scottish Long Course Championships in Glasgow on 20-22 June. The World Championships are in Barcelona from 20-27th July.

Igelstrom breaks 100 breast World Record - AGAIN!
Emma Igelstrom set yet another world record in the 100m breaststroke this evening on the final day of competition at the Swedish National Short Course Championships. Igelstrom, 23, recorded 1:05.11 (split 30.48) lowering her own world mark of 1:05.29 set yesterday during the semi-finals.

In other events, Olympic gold medalist Lars Frolander won two events: the 100 fly (52.25) and the 200 free (1:45.43). Eighteen year-old Erik Anderson finished second in the 100 fly in a national junior record of 52.94. Stefan Nystrand twice broke the meet record in the 50 breastatroke. Better known as a freestyle sprinter, Nystrand clocked 27.69 for the breaststroke sprint in the semis, then went 27.40 to win the final. Silver went to Martin Gustavsson in 27.64, also under the old meet mark. Joakim Nielsen, 18, broke the national junior record in the semis with 27.98. Matthias Ohlin won the 100 backstoke in 53.89, while Micke Jacobsson took control of the 400 I.M. in 4:18.68.

On the women's side, Therese Alshammar made it a sweep of the freestyle sprints when she won the 100 meters in 53.41 (split 25.79). Mia Boden won the 200 fly in 2:12.65, just ahead of Gabriella Fagundez in 2:12.90. Hanna Eriksson, 18, followed up her 100 I.M. win yesterday with victory in the 200m distance today (2:15.64). Emile Kierkegaard just edged Anna-Karin Kammerling in the 50 back, 28.70 to 28.78, while Teresa Gieholt took the 800 free in 8:46.96.

Igelstrom betters own 100 breast World record!
Emma Igelstrom rounded off a superb Swedish National Short Course Championships in Stockholm with a world record swim in the 100m breaststroke. Swimming in the semi-finals, Igelstrom clocked 1:05.29 (split 30.82)- reducing her previous best from the World Short Course Championships in Moscow last year by 9/100ths. Yesterday, Igelstrom set a European mark of 2:19.84 in the 200m breaststroke.

In other highlights: World record-holder Anna-Karin Kammerling followed her win in the 100 fly yestersay with a comfortable victory in the 50m fly, clocking 26.10. Hanna Eriksson won the 100m IM by almost three full seconds with 1:01.62. Camilla Johansson took her second gold stroking to a 2:11.95 win in the 200m backstroke. Yesterday she won the 100 back in 1:01.50.

On the men's side, Martin Gustavsson added to his victory in the 100m breaststroke yesterday with a national record in the 200m breast today. Gustavsson's time was a very impressive 2:07.66. (splits: 29.53 - 1:02.10 - 1:34.77). Joakim Nielsen, 18, set a national junior record of 2:14.88 when finishing 3rd. Stefan Nystrand set a meet record of 21.85 in winning the 50m free; while 38 year-old John Miranda swam 23.11 in the semifinals. Peter Edvarsson edged out Micke Jacobsson in the 400m freesstyle, 3:50.93 to 3:51.70 while Erik Dorch took the men's 100m I.M. in 55.63 and Olympic champion Lars Frolander set a meet mark of 51.83 in semi-final of the 100m fly.

Coach Carlile honoured
Famous Australian coach, Forbes Carlile, was honoured yesterday with an award for his influence in coach development. Already a Member of the British Empire (MBE), Carlile received the Eunice Gill Memorial Award at the inaugural Ausport Awards in Melbourne, Australia. Carlile is credited with changing the nature of swimming coaching over his 60 years in the sport, helping develop scientific techniques to enhance individual performance. He was among the first to apply tapering to swimmers' preparations and to use the two-beat or broken tempo kicks for distance events. Concepts now considered essential in coaching, such as logbooks and pace clocks, were all developed by Carlile.

"The award is a great honour," said Carlile. "About 60 years ago I started off and there you are," he said. Carlile paid respect to Professor Frank Cotton, widely considered to be the father of sports science in Australia. "After the World War II, we introduced a scientific approach to swimming. Before that coaches flew by the seat of their pants and there was no scientific background to it," he said. "I pay great respect to him (Cotton) ... I was brought up under him at the University of Sydney as a lecturer of physiology. I was his vice-president for swimming, so to speak. We did a lot of experiments." Carlile believes Australian swimming is leading the world today in terms of technique and coaching. "The whole world is trying to get the particular technique they (Australian swimmers) use," Carlile said.

He said the biggest change to the sport came with the introduction of money in the 1980s. "The big change was in 1984 at the Los Angeles (Olympic) Games with professionalism - they called off the idea of amateur status," he said. "The big difference nowadays is that instead of having people retiring at 16 or 17, which the girls did, now they can be as old as 30 and still improving. It has been made possible for people to stay in the sport."

Igelstrom breaks 200 breast European record
Sweden's Emma Igelstrom broke the women's short course 200m breaststroke European record yesterday when winning the Swedish Championships 2:19.64, 0.21 seconds faster than the mark she set in Melbourne last December. Igelstrom's splits were: 31.70 1:06.84 1:42.95, and her time was the second fastest in history trailing only China's Hi Qui.

In other news at the meet, Anna-Karin Kammerling led a trio of Swedes to the wall in under a minute in the 100 butterfly, as she recorded a 58.61. Lena Hallander was second in 59.43 while Linda Knutsson placed third in 59.86. Veteran Josefin Lillhage wonthe 400m freestyle, clocking 4:12.69. World record holder Therese Alshammar sprinted to victory in the 50 free in a strong 24.49. Kammerling finished second in 24.98 while Lillhage demonstrated her versatility by taking third in 25.41. On the men's side, Martin Gustavsson set a meet record in winning ther 100m breaststroke in 59.42. Patrik Isaksson was second in 1:00.68, while Joakim Nielsen, 18, set a national junior mark of 1:01.06 in finishing third. Stefan Nystrand set another meet record as he took the 100m free in 47.90 after splitting 22.51 at the 50. Lars Frolander was second in 48.13. Mattias Ohlin set a Swedish naional record with his 1:57.64 winning effort in the 200m backstroke and Lars Frolander took the 50 fly in 23.89.

Berlin World Cup - Report
Flying Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband, bettered his own European record in the 200 freestyle by 1/100th of a second in swimming 1:42.45. The 24 year old freestyle specialist placed second behind Australian Ian Thorpe who won in a time of 1:41.69, more than half a second outside the world record of 1:41.10 he set in the same Berlin Arena pool in 2000. Kvetoslav Svoboda from the Czech Republic placed third in 1:44.91.
German swimmer Thomas Rupprath set a short course world record in the men's 100 I.M. in 52.58. In the Europasportpark pool Rupprath took 0.05 off the previous mark set by Peter Mankoc last year at the short course Europeans in Antwerp, Belgium. "It's simply unbelievable," said Rupprath "I wasn't thinking about a world record today at all. I just hoped to swim under 54 seconds."
In other highlights, Austria's Maxim Podoprigora, broke the European record in the men's 200 breaststroke. Podoprigora's 2:06.95 lowers his own mark set four days ago at the World Cup meet in Stockholm, Sweden. Finally, Britain's Alison Sheppard set a new Commonwealth Record of 24.06 in the women's 50 freestyle. The Glasgow born sprint specialist, broke her own Commonwealth and British mark by 0.14 of a second. Despite not being as outstanding in many eyes as Benko's 3:59, this swim earned Sheppard the $30000 World Cup winning prize for the highest scoring female swim of the series.
Meanwhile, Argentina's Jose Meolans picked up the gold, as he edged Hoogenband in the 100 freestyle. Meolans finished in 47.32, 0.05 seconds ahead of VDH who after the race said he was disappointed: "It wasn't a very good day for me although I felt okay I didn't feel anything special today... Coming in second does not make me very happy at all." World champion Ian Thorpe was fourth in 47.55.

Paris World Cup Day 2
Ian Thorpe showed he is close to his best again with a win over Olympic champion Pieter van den Hoogenband in the 200m freestyle at the FINA World Cup in Paris. Thorpe, who has exercised so much dominance over world swimming during the past four years, had endured a rough time leading up to the race. The 20-year-old Australian had been well beaten by Van den Hoogenband in the 100m freestyle and then failed to qualify for the 50m final earlier today. Both men took turns leading the 200m final before world champion Thorpe produced a late surge to win in 1:41.86sec, ahead of the Olympic champion in 1:43.16. Czech swimmer Kvetoslav Svoboda came home third in 1:44.96.

And there was continued good news for British swimming - Zoe Baker (30.66) and Alison Sheppard (31.42) took gold and silver in the women's 50m breaststroke, Sarah Price won the 100m backstroke and Mark Foster took the men's 50m freestyle. Belarus swimmer Alena Popchenko won a tight women's 100m freestyle in 53.99sec, ahead of China's Yang Wei Xu in 54.43, with Slovak Martina Moravcova third in 54.45. The World Cup heads for the final two of seven legs in Stockholm from 21-22 January followed by Berlin from 25-26 January.

Paris World Cup Day 1
Pieter van den Hoogenband claimed the 100m freestyle gold at the FINA World Cup in Paris today, with Australian superstar Ian Thorpe back in fifth. Dutchman Van den Hoogenband was always favourite and stormed to victory in 47.41 seconds, just less than one second slower than Alexander Popov's long standing world short course record. Thorpe, the third-fastest qualifier, was disappointing as he finished well off the pace.Jason Lezac of the United States won silver in 47.58 seconds and Argentina's Jose Meolans bronze in 47.65. Despite the win, Van den Hoogenband said he was disappointed with his swim and would miss the Stockholm meet next week to concentrate on breaking Popov's record in Germany. "It was very difficult. I would have liked to go faster, but I was tired. I'm not surprised by Ian's time, he's not a sprinter yet." the 22-year-old medical student said. Thorpe warned that he was focussing on Saturday's 200m. "I didn't think at any moment that I could beat van den Hoogenband, but tomorrow should be a different story," said Thorpe. The Australian admitted that he stuggled on his turn and was still coming to grips with a change in style. "I didn't have big expecations, but I'm a little bit disappointed with the time. I thought I would be faster than that," said the 20-year-old. Van den Hoogenband, Olympic champion over 100 and 200m freestyle and three-time world runner-up over 50, 100 and 200, said Saturday's 200m would be a "top race". "I'm expecting a very close and exciting race," the Dutchman add