SHAOXING, East China -- The Asian swimming record tumbled again at the seven-day Olympic test event here on Friday.

Zhao Jing celebrates after she set up a new Asian record with 59.81 seconds in the women's 100 meters backstroke at the seven-day Olympic test event, in Shao Xing of East China, March 4, 2008. [Xinhua]

Zhao Jing from central China's Hubei province set up a new Asian record with 59.81 seconds in the women's 100 meters backstroke.

The new record came in the wake of another Asian record set by four of China's best male freestylers in the 4X100 meters relay heats on Thursday.

"I planned to clip the one minute mark, but have not expected I could break the Asian record," Zhao said.

The previous Asian record for the event was made by former Chinese swimmer He Cihong at 1:00.16 in 1994.

"It is difficult to get myself excited before the race. I said to myself that there should not be any burden, just go out and swim," said the 17-year-old teenager, also winner of the 200 meters backstroke at the trials.

"It was a satisfying result," she added.

Xutian Longzi from Chinese Army came in second with 1:00.97 and Gao Chang of east China's Shandong province placed third with 1:01.36.

Zhao now shares the world's sixth ranking with American swimmer Hayley Mcgregory. But her result was still 0.6 seconds shy of the world record of 59.21 seconds, set by US backstroker Natalie Coughlin in February this year.

Apart from the two new Asian records, the Olympic trials, which are about to close on Saturday, have seen three new national records in male events, namely 200m butterfly by Wu Peng, 400m freestyle by Zhang Lin and 100m breaststroke by Xie Zhi.

In other actions on Friday, China's top female freestyler Pang Jiaying achieved her personal best of 54.17 seconds in 100 meters freestyle. The result may be an added excitement in the trials, but still way slower than the world record of 52.88 seconds, set by Australia's Lisbeth Trickett.

"The next thing for me to do is to keep my strength and finetune my skills. My coach has arranged a three-week training session in June on the plateau," Pang said.

Also on Friday, Zhang Zishan, from Guangxi, claimed the title of the men's 200m individual medley with 2:01.88. The gold medal of the men's 200m breaststroke went to Xue Ruipeng from Shanxi in 2:15.56.

Li Xuanxu, winner of the women's 400 meters individual medley, reaped her second gold in the 800 meters freestyle final. She touched out teammates Yu Xin and Yang Fan, and was the first to touch wall in 8:31.66.

The gold of the men's 4X100 meters freestyle relay was shared by the national team and Guangdong team. The national team quartet, who smashed the Asian record in Thursday's heat with 3:17.07, went a lot slower in the final, clocking 3:21.89.

First leg swimmer Chen Zuo, also the national record holder in 100m freestyle, said the heat result should already be good enough to get them into the Olympics.