DUBAI: The Chinese women’s swimming team powered their way to the first world record of the FINA World Short Course Championships here on Wednesday. Chen Qian, Tang Yi, Liu Jing and Zhu Qianwei surged to victory in the 4x200m freestyle relay in a time of 7:35.94 to cut a massive three seconds off the previous mark set by the Netherlands at the last edition in Manchester two years ago.
Australia claimed silver in 7:37.57 and France the bronze in 7:38.33, meaning not only that the first three were all under the previous world mark, but also that traditional relay powerhouses the United States were ousted from the podium in both the men’s and women’s relay events. In the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay is was France who just edged out Russia by four hundredths of a second to take the gold in a championship record of 3:04.78 with Brazil taking the bronze in 3:05.74. “I didn’t think we could swim so fast but Yannick (Agnel) was very strong in the last few metres,” said Olympic 100m freestyle champion Alain Bernard.
