CHINA'S women swimmers, preparing for the Asian Games starting tomorrow, can draw inspiration from their 12 titles from 16 events at the Seventh World Swimming Championships in Rome last month.
The women's performances in the pool overshadowed the men - among them Australia's world-record-breaker Kieren Perkins, who slashed 1.2 seconds off Evgeny Sadovy's 400 metres freestyle record.
No swimmer at the championships was better than China's Le Jingyi.
The 19-year-old from Shanghai left all in her wake at the Foro Italico pool, winning four gold medals, setting two individual world records and anchoring relay teams to world bests in the 4 x 100 m and the 400 m medley.
Le broke the 100 m freestyle world record on the first day of the programme and set a new 50 m record on the last day.
She clocked 54.01 seconds for the 100 m freestyle - almost half a second faster than the previous world mark, which was set by American Jenny Thompson two years ago.
