Olympic champion Luo Xuejuan eyes third world championship

Olympic and world swimming champion Luo Xuejuan has set a new goal for herself to win her third straight world championships title next year.

"Indeed I can be satisfied with the fact that I have won at all the major tournaments," said the 20-year-old who was crowned in the 100m breaststroke at the Athens Olympic Games last August.

She also successfully defended her 50m and 100m titles at the Barcelona world championships before rallying with her teammates to grab the 4x100m medley relay gold last year.

"What is my next goal now? Maybe I should start thinking about defending my titles at next year's worlds," she said.

The 11th World Championships was scheduled to be held next Julyˇˇin Montreal, Canada but it was reported that FINA may consider shifting the competing site since the current host lacks enough funds to stage the tournament.

"But the most important task for me right now is to rehabilitate before I can return to competition 100% fit," she said.

Luo has been suffering from twitch and dizziness after intensive training or competition due to a lack of certain trace elements in her body, which caused a wave of panic at April's

Chinese spring national swimming meet when she almost fainted in the pool following the 200m breaststroke final.

Luo eased to win the 50m breaststroke in 31.61 seconds Sunday at the autumn meet here but it was a time nearly one second outside her world championships winning mark of 30.67.

"I resumed training less than a month ago, so I did not expect very good results here," she said, "Besides, my health has not been in a good state for some time, which means I need a period of time to rest."

Source: Xinhua