Qi Hui
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| Full name | Hui Qi | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality |
 China
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| Born |
13 January 1985 Fuzhou, China |
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| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Breaststroke | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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QI Hui (齐晖, born 13 January 1985 in Fuzhou, Fujian) is an Olympic and former World Record holding breaststroke swimmer from China. She held the World Record in the long course Women's 200 Breaststroke from April 2001-July 2004. She specializes in breaststroke but is also an individual medley swimmer.
Qi competed at the 1997 Chinese National Games, aged 12, where she placed 4th in the 200 breaststroke (2:30.77). She made her international debut at the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York. She won silver behind Japan's Masami Tanaka in the 200 breaststroke (2:28.44 to 2:28.71) at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok, where she was the youngest athlete in the Chinese delegation.
Qi continued climbing up the world rankings in 1999. At the World Short Course Championships in Hong Kong, she placed 3rd behind Tanaka and South Africa's Olympic champion Penny Heyns in the 200 breaststroke (2:25.05). A few months later, she broke 1992 Olympic champion Kyoko Iwasaki's Asian record (long course) with a 2:26.51. This ranked her 4th globally in 1999.
The 2000 Olympics in Sydney proved to be a disheartening experience for Qi. Considered to be China's best hope for a swimming medal, she choked in the 200 breast final, finishing 0.01 second behind USA's Amanda Beard for 4th (2:25.35 to 2:25.36). Ironically, her time in the semifinal, 2:24.21, which was a national record, could have been fast enough to win the final, which was won by Hungary's Ágnes Kovács at 2:24.35.
The Olympic experience prompted Qi to train much harder, and it paid off soon. She set her first world record in January 2001 in Paris with a 2:19.25 for the 200 breaststroke (short course), followed shortly by a 2:22.99 world record in the long course pool, breaking Penny Heyns' original mark by 0.65 sec. She also won the 2001 East Asian Games easily in 2:25.33. However, she faltered at the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, finishing 2nd in her pet event behind Kovacs (2:24.90 to 2:25.09). She won a bronze in the 200 individual medley (2:12.46 personal best) and was 4th in the 400 individual medley (4:41.64). The 2001 Chinese National Games was disappointing for Qi too: she failed to win any gold medals, being out-touched by the relatively unknown Luo Nan in the 200 breaststroke (2:24.76 to 2:24.80), was 2nd in the 400 individual medley after former world record holder Chen Yan (4:35.22 to 4:38.20) and 3rd in the 100 breast (1:09.12) behind Luo Xuejuan and Luo Nan.
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Wikipedia