Thorpe and co in for Chinese water torture when sleeping giant wakes

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China is aiming for a revolution in the pool at the 2008 Olympics, writes Michael Cowley.

The greatest challengers to both Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett at the Beijing Olympics will not be from Michael Phelps and the Americans, but from athletes from the home nation.

That is the candid assessment of Thorpe’s manager David Flaskas who, with the champion swimmer, has seen first-hand how the Chinese are preparing for an assault on the swimming events in 2008.

“They are going to be a realistic threat to Ian and Grant in 2008,” Flaskas said. “I think every event is going to be fiercely competed by the Chinese. We’ve been hearing about their freestylers for two years now, they are gearing up, and I think everyone [will] be under siege.

“The sleepers are the Chinese men. I don’t think we’ll see them until Melbourne in 2007 [the world championships] and I think everyone is going to be under siege, not just Ian and Grant but also Michael Phelps.”

Flaskas noted that China had several swimmers who qualified for the 2004 Athens Games but the Chinese chose not to take them. He feels it’s about exposing them at the right time and “catching people a little off guard”, but expects Melbourne 2007 to be like a mini-Olympics.

He added that Australia had become a little obsessed with the Americans and the Europeans, but having seen China’s programs and the numbers they had to call upon, Australia should beware of the Chinese swimmers.

“I think we’ll see a team that is unbelievable. We’d be very naive to disregard what is coming out of China,” said Flaskas.

Flaskas’s sentiments have been echoed around the globe. Britain’s Australian-born coach Bill Sweetenham admitted earlier this year that he believed the Chinese had held back their senior program and hidden their youth program.

Sweetenham said the Chinese would not be showing their hand until 2008, but pointed out that the world youth rankings were dominated by China and Japan.

Australian head coach Alan Thompson said there was no doubt the Chinese men and women would be solid in 2008.

“Irrespective of anything else, the numbers they have say you are going to come up with some talented kids,” Thompson said.

“And they have got an ability to coach and an ability to swim. Even in the old days - whatever they were doing - they still had to be able to swim well to be able to do what they did. I think they are going to be a threat to us in the coming years. It’s not something we’re not thinking about. We’re looking at it.”

To support his argument, Flaskas pointed out that on a recent trip to China he saw a television interview with a member of the Chinese Olympic Committee during which the question was asked what the goals were for 2008.

“It was a chilling reminder to the rest of the world,” Flaskas said. “He said they have got to get stronger in other sports, and that’s why they have a program called ‘one one nine’, which is the 119 gold medals that are tied up in five sports that China don’t dominate, and they are swimming, athletics, cycling, kayaking, and rowing.

Because of their chequered past, suspicions will always be high of China if they have success, particularly if they prosper after a period in which they have not been dominating the sport.

China’s biggest drug scandal came in 1994. After their stunning success at the world titles that year in Rome, where their women won 12 of 16 events, a month later seven swimmers tested positive for the steroid dihydrotestosterone at the Asian Games in Hiroshima.

Then in 1998 China was hit with four more positive steroid tests and the discovery of human growth hormone in the luggage of swimmer Yuan Yuan as she came through Sydney airport en route to the world titles in Perth.

While they have had some positive tests from time to time since, there has not been the spate that occurred in the 1990s. Flaskas said he had no doubt the Chinese programs were drugs-free.

At this year’s world championships in Montreal, American men’s coach Dave Salo brought up the lack of Chinese success, noting they won one silver and four bronze medals.

Salo said it raised suspicions when the Chinese were “not trying to be the best they can be in the world arena”.

“It’s always going to raise suspicions if we go into Beijing and they haven’t done anything in three years and names you never heard of are showing up in finals,” Salo said.

“Maybe they’re waiting for 2008 so they can step up and surprise us. We know they have the athletes. Maybe it’s more important to them to do well in their Chinese Games.”

The Chinese Games will be held in Nanjing in October and, according to Olympic gold medal-winning women’s breaststroker Luo Xuejuan, several Chinese swimmers have focused on those titles rather than the world championships.

“They needed to choose this championship or the national games,” Luo told AP in Montreal.