KAZAN: China's swimming superstar Sun Yang is gunning for four individual gold medals as he prepares to get his world championships campaign underway in Sunday's 400m freestyle heats and final.
The Chinese giant dominated the long-distance freestyle events in Barcelona two years ago with world titles in the 400m, 800m and 1500m to underline his reputation as one of swimming's superstars.
The 23-year-old will be defending all three in Kazan, plus racing in the 200m and relays for China in what promises to be a busy schedule.
Sun will be looking to again add the world title to his Olympic gold medal in the men's 400m freestyle after a helter-skelter couple of years which also saw him banned for three months for a doping offence.
Several of his long-distance rivals including Italy's Gregorio Paltrinieri, Australia's Mack Horton, Japan's Ayatsugu Hirai and Connor Jaeger of the USA have already posted fast 1500m times this year.
But in 2015 no-one has got within ten seconds of Sun's world record of 14 minutes 31.02 seconds from the 2012 Olympic Games and the six foot six inches freestyler remains the favourite to defend all three titles.
"Training has been going well. I have lots of pressures toward the world championships since I am going to compete in four individual events, but I'm ready for these challenges," Sun told the Xinhua news agency.
"This is my first time competing in Russia and my impression towards Kazan is that it's a clean and beautiful city."
He gave a statement of intent on his official Weibo (Chinese social media) account before heading to Kazan: "It's my first time to compete four individual events at world championships... I will try my best to bring home the golds."
His coach Zhang Yadong says the five-time world gold medallist has a '50/50' chance of winning four golds.
"He's in a good shape now, and has reached to 90-95 percent of his peak time," Zhang told Xinhua.
"I will say he has a 50 percent chance of winning gold in these four events.
"He will face lots of opponents in 200m free, it's hard to predict the result in such a short distance. I think he has a better chance in 400m free.
"However, it's going to be hard to predict in 800m and 1500m."
Sun was beaten by Japan's Kosuke Hagino in the 200m at last year's Asian Games, only for the Chinese giant to exact revenge on Hagino, who misses the world championships with injury, over eight laps.
"Although he (Sun) is in a better shape now than last year's Asian Games, lots of long distance young swimmers have improved dramatically, so the results will be unpredictable," added Zhang.
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