Teenager Li clocks swift 800m time

Races to third best time of the year at Chinese National Championships
By Reuters | Posted: Apr 24, 5:56a ET | Updated: Apr 24, 5:56a ET
BEIJING (Reuters) -- Teenager Li Xuanxu has underlined her burgeoning talent by racing to an 800 metres freestyle victory at the Chinese National Championships in the third best time of the year.

The 16-year-old, who swam the world's fastest 400m individual medley time of the year on Thursday, proved she was no slouch at double the distance on Friday by clocking eight minutes 24.10 seconds in Shaoxing.

Only Britain's Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington and Australian champion Katie Goldman have swum faster this year. Li's time in the medley was 4:34.59.

China won just one swimming gold medal at the last Olympics in Beijing -- through Liu Zige in the 200m women's butterfly -- but look to be building a much stronger squad for London 2012.