BEIJING, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- Ten medals including four golds in the world swimming championships, along with four new world records, were a delayed reward to the hard-working Chinese swimmers.
It came one year late for the Beijing Olympic Games and three years early for next Olympics in London.
Most Chinese medal hopefuls were crushed under pressure in the Beijing Olympics where China landed only one gold from Liu Zige's women's 200 meters butterfly and a silver in Zhang Lin's men's 400m freestyle.
When Liu and Zhang led the Chinese team to the Rome world championships, no one had expected these results: Zhao Jing topped the women's 50m backstroke; women relay teams dominated 4x200m freestyle and medley relay; Zhang Lin became China's first male swimming world champ by winning the 800m freestyle, and these four titles were won in world record breaking time.
The Olympic champion Liu improved her personal best but had to settle for second place in her favorite event, behind Australian Jessica Schipper.
The 21-year-old waited for only two months to reclaim the world record. She posted an incredible two minutes 01.81 seconds in the 200m butterfly final at the Chinese National Games in Jinan, ripping more than two seconds off the world mark of 2:03.41 set by Jessica Schipper at the Rome Worlds.
Her 100m butterfly clocking of 56.07 in Jinan was 0.01 shy of the current world record set by Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden in Rome.
Liu continued her record-breaking streak as she lifted the 200mbutterfly world marks twice in Stockholm and Berlin World Cup short course series.
"My dream is to retain the Olympic title in London," Liu said.
Backstroker Zhao Jing got rid of the nightmare that had been haunting her since the Beijing Olympics where she was disqualified for an illegal under-water start. She set world records in the women's 50m back and 100m individual medley in Stockholm.
Sun Yang, 18, is a rising star in the men's long-distance freestyle as he picked a bronze in the 1,500m freestyle in the Rome championships.
Both Liu and Zhang's victories were partly owed to their training in Australia and enlightened China to seek more international engagement.
Liu trained Down Under in 2003, 2007 and 2009 and had been trained with Ken Wood and Dennis Cotterell.
Zhang worked together three times with Grant Hackett's mentor Dennis Cotterell during 2007-2009.
"I've learned a lot from Dennis and improved a lot in recent years," said Zhang Lin. "The most important thing is that I've become more confident after training together with foreign swimmers."
In Liu Zige's opinion, "training aboard is just like the icing on the cake, while my own coach plays a major role all the time."
By the end of 2009, Michael Bohl, coach of Australia's double Olympic medley champion Stephanie Rice, was among four Australian coaches signed to help Chinese swimming.
The other coaches are Ken Wood, Dennis Cotterell and Otto Sonnleitner, a former chairman of the Australian Swimming Coaches and Teachers Association who had been appointed head coach of China's reserve team training camp.
More Chinese swimmers are planning to train in Australia, the United States and Europe in 2010.
"With the cooperation with these four Australian coaches, we have opened the door to Chinese swimming and have started to communicate with a swimming powerhouse," said Yao Zhengjie, head coach of the Chinese national team.
"With a fruitful 2009, we are confident to score better results in London," Yao added.
Special report: Yearender 2009
