In women's 200 meters butterfly, China now has two swimmers, Jiao Liuyang, 17, and Liu Zige, 19, to swim under two minutes and eight seconds. Their results now rank top 10 in the world.

Experts believe young Chinese swimmers who were among the sparkles at the trials as possible medal contenders, including 17-year-old Sun Yang, who is the world's top 10 in the men's 400 and 1500 freestyle, and Zhao Jing, the first Asian swimmer to go under one minute mark in the women's 100 meters backstroke.

Zhao has climbed to the world's sixth in 100 backstroke and the world's third in 200 backstroke, only after Zimbabwe's Kristy Coventry and French swimmer Laure Manaudou.

Despite the encouraging prospects, many say that there shall be no relief for the Chinese swimmers, in the face of waves of shattered world records by American, European and Australian swimmers in recent competitions.

Phelps seems to be a formidable obstacle for Wu as the American has set 25 world records (22 individuals and 3 relays) to approach Mark Spitz's record of 33 (26 individual and 7 relay).

At the Olympics, people start to expect the wunderkind to break Spitz's 36-year-long record -- seven gold medals at one Olympic Games.

Coming off a historic seven-win performance at last year's world championships, Phelps is expected to swim eight races in Beijing -- the 200-meter freestyle, the 100-meter butterfly, the 200-meter butterfly, the 200-meter individual medley, the 400-meter individual medley, the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, 4x200-meter freestyle relay, and the 4x100-meter medley relay.

In Beijing, Phelps is expected to swim only one individual event in which he doesn't hold the world record. Fellow American Ian Crocker is the current world record holder of the 100 butterfly, but Phelps has won 12 of 16 races against Crocker, including the last four.

On the women's side, the Australians are widely regarded as strongest team in the Games. Aussie sprinter Libby Trickett is a gold-medal favorite to sweep the pool. She will compete with 41-year-old American swimmer Dara Torres in the 50 free, and take on another American Natalie Coughlin in the 100m freestyle.

The Australian women will also be competitive in the relays, who had won the 400 free and 400 medley in Athens.

Coughlin will defend her gold medal in the 100 backstroke against Coventry, who also is a threat in the 200 back against newly minted world record holder Margaret Hoezler of the United States.

France also brings a strong men's team into Beijing, composing of sprinters Amaury Leveaux and Alain Bernard and breaststroker Hugues Duboscq.

Besides the Americans, Australians and the French, the Japanese, Germans, Russians, Italians and Chinese are medal contenders during the Aug. 9-17 swimming competition.

There are 32 swimming gold medals up for grabs at the Olympics, making it the second most prolific sport behind track and field.

(Xinhua News Agency July 22, 2008)