China Olympic swim champion to miss Asian Games

BEIJING: Olympic swim champion Luo Xuejuan will not be on China's national team at the upcoming Asian Games despite winning a spot during qualifying trials, state press said on Sunday.            

"Luo will be out of the 2006 Doha Asian Games," the China Daily quoted the national swim team deputy head Shang Xiutang as saying.           

The Athens Olympic 100 meter breaststroke gold medalist and two-time world champion was recovering from "health problems" and would skip the Asiad to focus on preparing for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Shang said.     

"Her main target should be the 2008 Beijing Games, so we should not let her take risks at the Asian Games," Shang said.              

In the Asian Games trials earlier this month, Luo finished second in the 100m breaststroke to up-and-coming swimmer Luo Nan in a time of one minute and 9.14 seconds, well short of the 1:06.64 she clocked when winning the Olympic gold medal in Athens in 2004.           

But according to qualifying rules the second place finish should have been enough to book her ticket to the December games in Doha.             

Luo, 22, has been in hot water since she was booted from national team training and told to return to her Zhejiang provincial team in July.        

Controversy has swirled around Luo, with local reports speculating that she has got into trouble over sponsorship money, a boyfriend, or over a refusal to train since the East Asian Games last November.   

Luo failed to medal at the 2005 world championships when she swam with an injured ankle and skipped the short-course world championships in Shanghai earlier this year also because of injury.