*** Welcome to piglix ***

Luo Xuejuan

Luo Xuejuan
Personal information
Full name 罗雪娟
Nationality  China
Born (1984-01-26) January 26, 1984 (age 33)
Hangzhou, Zhejiang
Height 1.67 m (5 ft 6 in)
Weight 64 kg (141 lb)
Sport
Sport Swimming
Strokes Breaststroke
Club Zhejiang

Luo Xuejuan (also Luo Xue Juan; simplified Chinese: 罗雪娟; traditional Chinese: 羅雪娟; pinyin: Luó Xuějuān; born January 26, 1984 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang) is a female Chinese swimmer, who competed mostly in the breaststroke. She is a former world record holder in the 50-meter breastroke (short course).

She began swimming in 1991 because her parents thought she was so thin that the exercise would make her stronger.

Luo first caught attention when she won the 100 breaststroke at China's 2000 Olympics Trials in Jinan in a solid time of 1:08.87 and finished second in the 200 breaststroke in 2:27.29. Strangely, she was only selected to swim the 200 breaststroke, her weaker event, at the 2000 Summer Olympics a few months later. She posted a personal best of 2:25.86 in the semi-finals, only to falter in the final and finish 8th in 2:27.33.

Going into 2001, Luo progressed rapidly. At the Chinese Nationals in April, she set a national record of 1:07.85 in the 100 breaststroke and placed 2nd in the 200 breaststroke (2:26.37) which was won by Qi Hui in a world record (2:22.99). Shortly afterwards, Luo lowered by 100 breast national record to 1:07.42 at the 2001 East Asian Games in Osaka.

At the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, Luo took home 4 medals, including gold in the 50 breaststroke (30.84, Asian record, missing the WR by a mere 0.01 sec) and 100 breaststroke (1:07.18, Asian record), and bronze in the 200 breaststroke (2:25.29 pb) and 4x100 medley relay (4:02.53; breaststroke split 1:06.47 was the 2nd fastest ever, behind USA's Megan Quann's 1:06.29 from Sydney 2000). Luo went on to win the 100 breaststroke at the 2001 Chinese National Games at 1:06.96 (Asian record). It was during these Games that she said her very well known quote, "The water in this pool is not very clean, but I am a clean swimmer myself" (referring to the series of astonishingly fast times posted by some totally unknown swimmers who were highly suspected of doping at the National Games).


...
Wikipedia

...