Li, Xu complete gold treble in China national swim meet

The 16-year-old Li Zhuhao completed a golden treble in men's butterfly while Xu Jiayu did the same in men's backstroke on the fourth day of the Chinese National Swimming Championships here on Wednesday.

Li led from the start and touched in 51.45 seconds in the 100m butterfly, beating Zhang Qibin of Shandong (53.24) and Chen Mengxu of the Chinese Navy (53.29).

"My result today was better than the time 51.66 I swam in Kazan World Championships and it could rank seventh," said Li.

"I kept training and good form after Kazan. I will continue to compete in the World Cup in Beijing later this month and the National Youth Games in Fujian province next month," Li said.

In the men's backstroke, Xu Jiayu, under the same coach of Olympic champion Ye Shiwen and Li Zhuhao, also added 100m back title in 53.77 to his golds from 50 and 200m back.

"I was too tired to swim a better result. I still need to improve my power and consistency," Xu said.

Wang Lizhuo of the Chinese Navy bagged his second title by winning the men's 50m breaststroke in 27.59 seconds. He also took the 100m breaststroke in a national record time of 59.79, becoming the first Chinese male swimmer under one-minute barrier.

In other events, Chen Jie of Hubei clocked 1:00.14 to lift the title of women's 100m backstroke, beating Cheng Haihua of Beijing and Xu Huiyi of Hubei; He Jianbin of Guangdong won the men's 100m freestyle in 49.79; Chen Shiyun of Jiangxi snatched the women's 400m freestyle gold in 4:07.00.

Zhang Xinyu of Henan claimed the women's 200m breaststroke in 2:27.04 while Beijing touched home first in 3:40.58 in the women's 4X100m freestyle relay. Endi