Swimming-China downbeat for last worlds before Beijing Olympics

BEIJING, Mar 17 (Reuters) China's swimmers have been set the modest target of winning one gold medal in Melbourne at the last long course world championships before the Beijing Olympics.

Having lost Athens Olympic 100m breaststroke champion Luo Xuejan to premature retirement in January, coach Zhang Yadong thinks his team will find it tough to improve on the one silver and four bronzes they won in Montreal in 2005.

''We will be fighting for a gold,'' he told China Sports Daily. ''In the past two months the team has trained overtime to complete the planned preparations. It was a short but effective time.'' With just 18 months to go before the Beijing Games, there is still no sign of the world-beating crop of new swimming talent anticipated by the coaches of rival nations.

Former Australia coach Don Talbot told the Australian newspaper last week that there is a ''sense that the wave is coming''. Britain coach Bill Sweetenham said he thought the Chinese were keeping ''their cards close to their chest''.

Such suspicion is due to China's sudden elevation to world power status in the early 1990s, which culminated in Chinese women winning 12 of 16 titles at the 1994 worlds in Rome. These successes were later tainted by a string of doping scandals.

China is still trying out youngsters and almost half of the 44-strong team will be taking part in the world championships for the first time.

Gold medal hopes rest mainly with the experienced Qi Hui, who won three golds at the short course worlds last year, and teenager Wu Peng, who won the 200 butterfly at the same Shanghai meet.

''I have confidence in Qi Hui's 200 and 400 medley performance,'' said Zhang. ''But Wu Peng was sick recently and he has had only a short time in training so it may be difficult for him to win gold.'' Wu has been having some problems with his wisdom teeth, while Qi, 22, has been on a new training programme.

''So far it has showed some effects,'' she said. ''But it is hard to tell what my progress is like.'' The main swimming events at the world championships start on March 25 and finish on April 1.

REUTERS SAM KP0948