Australian coach Denis Cotterell said in Beijing Saturday that there is no chance for Chinese freestyle specialist Zhang Lin to beat Australia's long distance king Grant Hackett in Sunday's 1,500-meter freestyle final.

"There might be a medal hope for Zhang. But for a gold medal, no way,"said Cotterell, who was Hackett's former coach and now coaches Zhang.

Hackett cruised to be the fastest in his signature event the 1500-meter freestyle on Friday, and looked well in form for his third consecutive Olympic gold medal in this event. The 28-year-old Aussie finished the heat with a new Olympic record at 14 minutes and 38.92 seconds.

Zhang, who elbowed Hackett and won a silver in the men's 400-meter freestyle, clocked 14:45.84. South Korea's Park Tae-hwan had to cut short his Olympic adventure after failing to qualify for the final, finishing the 16th with a time of 15:05.55.

Hackett has remained a benchmark swimmer in the men's 1,500-meter freestyle since 2001, when he clocked 14:34.56 in the world championships in Fukuoka, Japan. The mark remained intact over the past seven years.

Cotterell said Hackett was able to swim into 14 minutes 30 seconds four years ago but the swimmer didn't give all his best in the world events. "As long as he could win the gold medal, there is no need to go that fast."

Among the finalists on Sunday's race, Hackett is the only one who swam into 14 minutes and 40 seconds. Zhang was almost seven seconds behind Hackett, ranking fourth.

Cotterell, whom Zhang trained with for almost half a year, said Zhang did his best in the heats and improved his personal best by 10 seconds, but "Hackett certainly conserved some energy in the heats."

The coach said the Chinese swimmer has improved a lot over the past several months, especially in turning skills. "But compared with Hackett, his skills are not perfect and he lacks the experiences that Hackett has for many years," Cotterell said.

On Sunday's competition, Cotterell said the most important thing for Zhang is to "swim his own race" and not be disturbed by Hackett's fast pace.

He said he believed his former student is in a good form. "The key thing for Hackett is whether he could recover well after yesterday's heats."

Cotterell has coached 16 swimmers to the Olympics, guided countless others to state and national titles. Four of his swimmers -- Grant Hackett, Daniel Kowalski, Giaan Rooney and Andrew Baildon -- have won Olympic medals. Hackett left Cotterell last year.

Source: Xinhua