Popov back in Russia for
world title tilt
Alexander Popov, defying the years, has returned to his native Russia for one more challenge as he takes on seasoned title-holder Mark Foster in the shortest freestyle sprint at the world short-course swimming championships starting on Wednesday.
Popov joins an array of fellow world record-holders, including distance freestyle master Grant Hackett and versatile Ukrainian Yana Klochkova, at a five-day meeting at the indoor Olympiisky Sports Complex.
Popov, who turned 30 last November, secured a unique second Olympic golden double at the 1996 Atlanta Games and less than a month later sustained serious knife wounds when he was stabbed in the abdomen by a melon-seller in a Moscow street.
Invincible for most of the 1990s, he lost his Olympic 50 and 100 metres freestyle titles at the 2000 Sydney Games and pulled out of last July's world long-course championships because of illness.
Now back in Moscow with coach Gennady Touretski, the man who persuaded the swimmer to join him in Canberra in early 1993, he plans to compete only in the 50 freestyle and relays but should still relish another moment in the limelight in the city where he set his last world record.
The Russian, who broke the 50 freestyle long-course record here in June 2000, faces a riveting clash with veteran defending champion Foster, winner of the 50 freestyle in three of the five previous editions of these championships.
RECORD INCENTIVE
The Briton, at 31 even older than Popov, excels in the 25-metre pool and has declared his intention of beating his own world marks in both the 50 freestyle and 50 butterfly, events in which he sped to gold at the 2000 championships in Athens.
"I really feel in fantastic shape and I'm going to Moscow expecting to break world records in the 50 freestyle and 50 butterfly while also winning both events," Foster said last week.
"I've set my sights high and have put a bit of pressure on myself but time's getting short. I've set myself realistic targets."
This could prove a spur to Popov. "Initially we didn't plan any records but Alexander doesn't like to lose, so it's quite possible than in order to win he would have to set a world record," Touretski told Russian journalists at the weekend.
Hackett leads the Australian challenge in the absence of triple world record-holder Ian Thorpe, winner of an unprecedented six gold medals at last year's Fukuoka long-course world championships but concentrating this year on the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England, and Pan-Pacific championships in Yokohama, Japan.
Hackett had to settle for silver behind the prodigious Thorpe in the 400 and 800 freestyle in Fukuoka but emphatically confirmed his place as undisputed king of the 1500 metres there by obliterating the long-course world record of fellow Australian Kieren Perkins, whom he had deposed as Olympic champion in Sydney the previous year. He then lowered his own short-course world mark just nine days later in Perth.
Hackett has won every major 1500 he has contested since he claimed the world short-course crown for the first time at the age of 16 in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1997 and feels he can still improve.
Nineteen-year-old Klochkova, double individual medley gold medallist at the 2000 Olympics, will be out to prove herself number one after suffering two rare defeats in the past year, losing the 200 medley to American Maggie Bowen at the world long-course championships and the 400 medley to Germany's Nicole Hetzer at the European short-course championships in Antwerp last December.
RESURGENT CHINA
China, who dominated women's swimming in the 1990s before becoming embroiled in a series of doping scandals, are on the march again, having reached rock bottom with no swimming medals at the 2000 Olympics.
Yang Yu and Chen Hua defend respective titles in the women's 200 and 800 metres freestyle, while Luo Xuejuan, 50 and 100 breaststroke long-course world champion, and Qi Hui, 200 breaststroke short-course world record-holder, give the women's line-up in a 21-strong squad an even more formidable look.
The official Xinhua news agency said last week that Luo, 18, had been suffering from stomach ache and insomnia for more than a month and was not in peak form.
"Though I'm not in my best form I will do my best to take a gold medal," Luo was quoted as saying.
Sweden will also figure high, with world and Olympic 100 butterfly champion Lars Frolander and sprint freestyler Therese Alshammar defending titles they won in Athens.
Leading Americans include backstroker, Aaron Peirsol, a long-course world champion and world record-holder, and Chad Carvin and Lindsay Benko, who respectively defend the men's and women's 400 metres freestyle titles.
Perhaps the tightest race will be the women's 50 metres breaststroke in which the world short-course record has been broken or equalled nine times in the past four months, Sweden's Emma Igelstrom snatching it from Britain's Zoe Baker at the last count in a series begun in a dead-heat by Luo and Chinese compatriot Li Wei last December.
