Kitajima World Record

It's a pity if his message gets misinterpreted by non-Japanese speakers and offends other swimmers and their fans/supporters. According to the following on-line newspaper article (in Japanese, sorry): www.tokyo-np.co.jp/.../CK2008060702000093.html the t-shirt says that the Japanese sentence reads "I'm the one that swims" (of course that's my traslation into English) and the article quotes what Kitajima said in his interview after the race: "It's not the swimsuit that swims. I want people to instead turn their attention to us athletes who are training hard and trying to do the best we can." So I believe what he is saying is that he is sick of all the fuss about swimsuits that's on newspapers and TV news in the past month here in Japan, and sick of the Japanese media interested only in the issues with Japanese Swimming Federation's decisions and the swimsuit manufacturers, and not much in the athletes's efforts or their performaces. I think the English and the Chinese sentences are supposed to be the translations of the same message into respective languages but obviously he (or who knows who did those translations for him) didn't do a great job with it, as "I'm the swimmer" sounds more like Kitajima is either being arrogant, conceited or provocative towards his rivals by claiming that he is the number one swimmer. I understand this could potentially be interpreted out of context and offend Hansen and other top contenders, which would be unfortunate. After the 200m breaststroke final at Japan Open I watched his interview where he said that he'd been behind Hansen after the last Olympics so this new WR doesn't change his stance towards the Beijing Olympics as being the one who challenges the champion, not the one who is challenged. So I think Kitajima pays a lot of respect towards Hansen. Sorry if I sound overly defensive for Kitajima, just my two cents.

It's a pity if his message gets misinterpreted by non-Japanese speakers and offends other swimmers and their fans/supporters. According to the following on-line newspaper article (in Japanese, sorry): www.tokyo-np.co.jp/.../CK2008060702000093.html the t-shirt says that the Japanese sentence reads "I'm the one that swims" (of course that's my traslation into English) and the article quotes what Kitajima said in his interview after the race: "It's not the swimsuit that swims. I want people to instead turn their attention to us athletes who are training hard and trying to do the best we can." So I believe what he is saying is that he is sick of all the fuss about swimsuits that's on newspapers and TV news in the past month here in Japan, and sick of the Japanese media interested only in the issues with Japanese Swimming Federation's decisions and the swimsuit manufacturers, and not much in the athletes's efforts or their performaces. I think the English and the Chinese sentences are supposed to be the translations of the same message into respective languages but obviously he (or who knows who did those translations for him) didn't do a great job with it, as "I'm the swimmer" sounds more like Kitajima is either being arrogant, conceited or provocative towards his rivals by claiming that he is the number one swimmer. I understand this could potentially be interpreted out of context and offend Hansen and other top contenders, which would be unfortunate. After the 200m breaststroke final at Japan Open I watched his interview where he said that he'd been behind Hansen after the last Olympics so this new WR doesn't change his stance towards the Beijing Olympics as being the one who challenges the champion, not the one who is challenged. So I think Kitajima pays a lot of respect towards Hansen. Sorry if I sound overly defensive for Kitajima, just my two cents.