| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Liu Zige |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Born | (1989-03-31)31 March 1989 (age 35) Benxi,Liaoning, China |
| Height | 1.81 m (5 ft 11 in) |
| Weight | 67 kg (148 lb; 10.6 st) |
| Sport | |
| Sport | Swimming |
| Strokes | butterfly |
Liu Zige (simplified Chinese:刘子歌;traditional Chinese:劉子歌;pinyin:Liú Zǐgē, born 31 March 1989) is a world record holding professional swimmer from China. She swam for China at the2008 Olympics, where she won thewomen's 200m butterfly in a newworld record of 2:04.18.
She won the women's 200 m butterfly gold medal at the2008 Summer Olympics inBeijing. In the final, she clocked a time of 2:04.18, breakingJessicah Schipper'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 the2005 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.[citation needed]
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.[1] She would eventually beat Schipper and broke her world record in 200 meter butterfly during the2008 Summer Olympics.
In 2009, Liu regained the 200m butterfly world record from Schipper at the Chinese National Games, with a time of 2:01:81[2] to win the gold medal. She later added the short course world record at the World Cup in Stockholm (2:02:50).[3] She then even shortened that time in the next meet at Berlin with the time of 2:00.78.
| Records | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Women's 200 metre Butterfly World Record Holder (Long Course) 14 August 2008 – 29 July 2009 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Women's 200 metre Butterfly World Record Holder (Long Course) 21 October 2009 – present | Succeeded by Incumbent |
| Preceded by | Women's 200 metre Butterfly World Record Holder (Short Course) 11 November 2009 – 3 December 2014 | Succeeded by |
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