(Beijing, February 3) After claiming the 100m breaststroke gold of the "Good Luck Beijing" 2008 Swimming China Open at the National Aquatics Center this morning, China's veteran Qi Hui kept her form tonight to be the second finisher in the women's 200m individual medley heats this evening, while Helge Meeuw of Germany clocked 54.96 to lead the men's 100m backstroke preliminaries.

In the men's 50m freestyle heats, Stefan Nystrand of Sweden had little trouble in prevailing with a time of 22.33 as his compatriot Petter Stymne and China's Huang Shaohua stood second and third respectively.

In the women's 200m individual medley preliminaries, Qi Hui of China touched the wall in 2:17.33 to come second. The top spot went to Korean Choi Hye Ra with a time of 2:17.09 and Theresa Michalak of Germany ended in third.

Japanese Sano Hidemasa dominated the men's 200m individual medley with 2:01.68 while Portugal's Fabio Carvalho and Hungary's Laszio Cseh ranked second and third tandem.

Hungarian Nikolett Szepesi's first finish in 2:14.31 highlighted the women's 200m backstroke heats. China's Chen Yanyan placed second with 2:16.90 and German veteran Antje Buschschulte also made to the final.

Today's last preliminary race witnessed German veteran Helge Meeuw leading the men's 100m backstroke with 54.96. Korean Sung Min was second with China's duo Sun Xiaolei and Shi Feng cruising into the next stage, in fourth and fifth respectively.