Liu Zige (, born 31 March 1989) is a world record-holding professional swimmer from China. She swam for China at the

2008 Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fr ...

, where she won the women's 200m butterfly in a new

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organizatio ...

of 2:04.18.

Career

She won the women's 200m butterfly gold medal at the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. In the final, she clocked a time of 2:04.18, breaking

Jessicah Schipper Jessicah Lee Schipper (born 19 November 1986) is an Australian former competition swimmer and former world record holder for 200 metres butterfly. Specialising in the 100 and 200 metres butterfly, she won several gold medals at the Olympic G ...

's world record by over 1 second, and won China's only gold medal in swimming at the Games. Her teammate, Jiao Liuyang, took the silver in 2:04.72, also under the former world mark. Schipper took the bronze in 2:06.26. Liu's win was considered a big upset, as she was relatively unknown prior to the Beijing Games. She made her international debut at the 2005 World Championships, where she placed 20th in the 200 m butterfly at 2:14.25. She progressed steadily afterwards, and prior to the Olympics, her best time was 2:07.76, from the Chinese Olympics Trials. Liu, nicknamed "Lucy," spent some time training under Jessicah Schipper's swimming coach, Ken Wood, and Wood sold Schipper's training program to Liu's coach. She would eventually beat Schipper and broke her world record in 200 meter butterfly during the

. In 2009, Liu regained the 200m butterfly world record from Schipper at the Chinese National Games, with a time of 2:01:81 to win the gold medal. She later added the short course world record at the World Cup in Stockholm (2:02:50). She then shortened that time in the next meet at Berlin with a time of 2:00.78.

Major achievements

*2007 National Champions Tournament – 1st 200 m butterfly *2008 Beijing Olympics women's 200 m butterfly Gold *2009 World Aquatics Championships – 2nd Women's 200 m butterfly *2013 World Aquatics Championships – 1st Women's 200 m butterfly

References

External links

* * * * * http://2008teamchina.olympic.cn/index.php/personview/personsen/5347 {{DEFAULTSORT:Liu, Zige 1989 births Living people People from Benxi Swimmers from Liaoning Chinese female butterfly swimmers Swimmers at the 2008 Summer Olympics Swimmers at the 2012 Summer Olympics Olympic swimmers for China Olympic gold medalists for China Olympic gold medalists in swimming Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics Swimmers at the 2014 Asian Games Asian Games swimmers for China World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming Medalists at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) World record setters in swimming World record holders in swimming 21st-century Chinese sportswomen

Career

Major achievements

See also

References

External links