10-Year-Old Chinese Girl Swims River with Hands, Feet Tied

father tied his 10-year-old daughter's hands and feet and watched her swim in a chilly southern China river for three hours in a task he said Thursday would help the girl achieve her dream of swimming across the English Channel.

     Huang Li swam more than a mile in the Xiang River on Tuesday, traveling with the current, her father said. The girl swam by moving like a dolphin and would sometimes paddle with her bound hands.

     ``Her swimming skills are perfect and she insisted on doing this,'' Huang Daosheng said in a telephone interview. The girl, who lives in the city of Zhangjiajie in Hunan province, got the idea after seeing something similar on a local television program, he said.

     With the Beijing Olympics less than a year away, sports is grabbing greater attention in an already sports-crazed country. Huang Li's swim is at least the second time in recent months that a child athlete has drawn media attention.

     This past summer, 8-year-old Zhuang Huimin ran 2,212 miles from her home on the southern island province of Hainan to Beijing in 55 days, her father trailing behind her on a motor scooter. The run drew criticism from some media commentators as excessive for a young child.

     News photos showed Huang Li, wearing a skirted swimsuit, being picked up out of the water by her father. Her ankles were tied together with string and her hands were bound by a strip of cloth. A newspaper report said the girl was so cold her face had turned blue.

     ``It's not dangerous because, first, her swimming skills are really good and second, I was swimming with her, staying close to her,'' the father said. ``I had her when I was 35, so she is my heart. I would never play around with her life.''

     The father, a teacher who enjoys swimming, coaches his daughter and said the family does not have enough money for her to have a better coach. The girl started the sport when she was six and her father said her goal is to one day swim across the English Channel.

     ``She asks me every day, 'Can I achieve this? Is the English Channel wide? Are the waves really big?''' Huang Daosheng said.