Beijing Olympics 2008 - Chinese Join World Record Swimming Fun

Before Thursday, the National Aquatic Center was a source of national pride for its unique, bubble-wrap architecture. The exploits were largely by foreigners, chief among them American Michael Phelps, who has treated the pool at the so-called Water Cube as if it sat in his back yard in Maryland. Yet Thursday morning, over the final length of the pool, entire sections of the crowd stood, waving red Chinese flags. One Chinese swimmer, Liu Zige, was under world record pace in the women's 200-meter butterfly. Here came another, Jiao Liuyang. Suddenly, Australian favorite Jessicah Schipper was an afterthought. Suddenly, at the fastest swimming meet in history, the home team finally had its moment -- gold and silver, and another world record. On the only day when Phelps didn't swim for what could be a total of eight medals, Liu's world-record swim of 2 minutes 4.18 seconds -- more than a second better than Schipper's old mark -- injected the competition with a new electricity. The morning was capped with a world record for Australia, and a third gold for Stephanie Rice, in the women's 4x200-meter relay, a race in which the United States team, anchored by Katie Hoff, took bronze behind China's silver...WP