Ye emerges as Rice’s rival
After her spectacular victory in the Asian Games, the 14-year-old swimmer revealed her plans of setting her eyes at the London Olympics. The young Chinese swimmer is now being considered as a threat to the established swimmer Stephanie Rice in the upcoming
London Olympics. The intriguing part of this fact is that Ye is eight years junior to the champion swimmer Rice.
The 14-year-old girl is the youngest player on the host team participating in the Asian Games in Guangzhou. She managed to take over the field in the 400 metre individual medley on Sunday. This is one of the events which Rice holds a world record.
The enthusiastic swimmer, Ye Shiwen finished this race, the final meet of the event in a time period of 4 minutes and 33.97 seconds.
This was a remarkable performance by the Chinese girl, as her finishing time was the second fastest of this season. It was only behind Hannah Miley, the British swimmer and was just a second faster than what Stephanie’s best time this year, the record that
she set at the Australian championships that were held in March.
Stephanie Rice is to face a huge deal of competition from within her team and outside in the London Olympics. She could not make it to the Commonwealth Games that took place in New Delhi last month, due to a surgery of her bothersome shoulder.
This year, two other swimmers Alicia Coutts and Emily Seebohm, were ranked higher than Rice in the 200 metre Individual Medley event.
What is most upsetting for Rice is that Ye still has two years to develop into a even better swimmer than what she is now. Rice has won three gold medals in the Olympics and is still worried by the potential of the young champion.
After winning the race on Sunday, Ye was reported as saying, “My goal of course is London Olympics.”
She added, “This is my first time at such a big international event and I was honoured and happy to see the national flag raised because of my performance.”
The teenage champion went on to say, “I have to put up with the training, sometimes I cannot bring myself to train, but I’m fighting for a better life for my family and so I have to do this.”
Ye also won the three World Cup races that were held in Beijing last month.
Tags: