World and Olympic champion Luo Xuejuan eased to the women's 50m breaststroke title here Sunday, the third day of the Chinese autumn national swimming meet.

Luo, 100m breaststroke winner in Athens, leapt into the water with a fastest reaction time of 0.61 seconds and swam to triumph in 31.61, but nearly a second outside her personal best of 30.64.

"I resumed training less than a month ago, so I did not expect very good results here," said the 18-year-old, who successfully defended her 50m and 100m breaststroke titles before becoming a member of the 4x100m medley relay winning team.

"My health has not been in a good state for some time, which means I need a period of time to rest," she said.

Ji Liping from Shanghai finished a distant second in 32.67 and Shanxi's Zhao Jin came third in 32.85.

Wu Peng, freshly from winning the men's 400m individual medaly in four minutes 17.16 seconds Friday, raced to the 200m IM gold in a national record time of 2:01.08, shaving 0.79 off the previous mark.

Wu's national teammate Zhao Tao followed at heel to take the silver, also breaking the national record in 2:01.12.

Wang Wei from Shanghai finished third in 2:03.17.

World championships bronze medalist Yang Yu bagged the gold of her pet event when she clocked 1:59.45 to win the 200m freestyle, edging her national teammate Pang Jianying to second place in 2:00.67. Tang Jingzhi from Zhejiang took bronze,1.36 off the pace.

Defending champion Ouyang Kunpeng sailed to the expected victory in the men's 50m backstroke in 25.98 while Hayden Stoeckel from the Queensland Academny of Sports finished second in 26.34 and Zhang Chang from Zhejiang was third in 26.49.

Ji Zhixiang from Jiangsu spent 15:24.18 to win the most strenuous event of the men's 1,500m freestyle while Zhang Lin from Beijing came second in 15:27.90. Jiangsu's Zhou Cong was third in 15:28.12.

The Australians triumphed in the men's 4x100m freestyle relay in 3:24.99 while Zhejiang was pushed to the runner-up position in 3:25.26 and Shanghai took bronze in 3:25.65.

Source: Xinhua