Olympic champion Liu Zige placed third in one minute and 0.07 seconds in the women's 100m butterfly at the Chinese national swimming championships in Huangshan on Thursday.

Liu chose not to participate in her specialty events because she just finished the Asian Games. Still, she was not satisfied with the result. "I could swim faster," said Liu.

Also in this event, six Youth Olympics golds winner Shen Duo failed to enter the final. The gold was grabbed by Zhou Yilin from Hebei.

In other competitions, Zhang Yufei from Jiangsu touched the wall first in one minute 57.63 seconds in women's 200m freestyle. Zhejiang's Mao Feilian topped the men's 400m individual medley in 4:17.56. Another Jiangsu swimmer Shi Jinglin clocked 1:06.98 to grab the gold of women's 100m breaststroke.

Not affected by his sore throat, Zhejiang's Xu Jiayu easily won the men's 50m backstroke in 25.17 seconds. Yang Zhixian from Hunan claimed the men's 200m butterfly title in 1:57.33. The men's 4x100m freestyle gold was collected by Guangdong team in 3:19.52.

A total of 372 swimmers from all over China are competing in 38 events of the championships, which lasts from October 14-18.