Ye Shiwen fails to win in Chinese swimming championships

Olympic champion Ye Shiwen finished off the podium in the women's 50m freestyle at the Chinese national swimming championships here on Tuesday.

Like another Olympic champion Jiao Liuyang, Ye didn't take part in her specialty events, but 50m freestyle and 200m breaststroke instead. Ye placed fourth in the 50m freestyle in 25.74 seconds as Shanghai swimmers Yin Fan and Xu Wen finished 1-2 in 25.26 and 25.45 respectively.

Ye seemed satisfied with her performance.

"It should be my best, 0.01 second faster than I did last year in City Games," Ye said.

"I didn't have a good rest since the Olympics because I had a really tight schedule," she said. "I'm so tired that I chose less competitive events.

"Next month I'll head for the plateau training base in Yunnan province. Hopefully I can return to form in time for the short-course swimming championships at the year-end."

Ye stunned the world with double individual medley gold medals and a world record plus an Olympic record in her debut Olympics in London.

In the women's 50m backstroke, Liu Xiang of Guangdong touched the wall first in 28.19 seconds. Beijing's Liu Zhaochen topped the men's 100m freestyle in 50.09. Another Beijing swimmer Wang Shuai clocked 27.91 to grab the 50m breaststroke gold.

Shanghai's Lu Ying timed 58.78 to claim the women's 100m butterfly title and her teammate Yin Fan powered home first in the women's 50m freestyle in 25.26.

The women's 200m individual medley gold went to Zhang Wenqing from Shandong who registered two minutes and 13.24 seconds. The women's 4x100m freestyle gold was collected by Beijing in 3:43.63.