Japan's swim king Kosuke Kitajima arrived in Beijing Sunday afternoon for a pre-Olympic warm-up.
With hair cut short and beard running from cheek to chin, the double Olympic champion smiled to a swarm of journalists and posed handsomely to photographers waiting at the airport.
Kitajima and his teammates will start training at the National Aquatics Center, known as Water Cube, Sunday night, sources with Japan's swimming team said.
After brief warm-up at the Olympic venue, the Japanese swimmers will leave Beijing for Chejudo, Republic of Korea, on July 29 and return to Beijing on Aug 2.
Japan's Olympic swimming team has the tradition of arriving at the host city first and then heading to other place for training.
"It's not very convenient to train in the Olympic venue as all the swimmers will be there. Besides, athletes will feel bored if living in the Olympic village for a long time," said a Japanese reporter.
Two months before the Beijing Olympic Games, wearing Speedo LZR Racer, Kitajima finished in 2 minutes, 07.51 seconds at the Japan Open, shaving almost a second off the previous mark of the men's 200 breaststroke.
Kitajima told reporters earlier that his record breaking performance last month gave him a lot of confidence. "The only thing I have in mind right now is to win the gold in Beijing," he was quoted as saying.
In the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, Kitajima beat his long-time rival American swimmer Brendan Hansen and won gold in the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke. Hansen settled for a silver in the 100 meters and a bronze in the other.
(Xinhua News Agency July 28, 2008)