Nearly two months after his sensational 100m freestyle victory at the world championships, swimmer Ning Zetao still finds it hard to embrace his celebrity.

For the 22-year-old, who became the first Asian to win the Western-dominated sprint event on a world stage, handling the sudden public exposure and zealous fans can seem like a bigger challenge than his demanding training routine.

"Sometimes I am a little bit concerned whether they would keep following me or not after taking a photo with me," Ning said at a recent commercial endorsement event in Shanghai.

"At the end of the day, I am just an ordinary young man and I hope to have my privacy to go to the movies or hang out with my friends like anybody else."

After the 50m freestyle preliminaries at the National Championships earlier this month, Ning was almost pushed into the water by enthusiastic followers while walking poolside.

Some female users on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social networking platform, even superimposed Ning's photo on their own selfies and posted them online, pretending to be girlfriends with the good-looking young swimmer.

Ning's success feeds into China's eager search for new sporting heroes to fill the big shoes left by retired global stars such as basketball icon Yao Ming, tennis Grand Slam winner Li Na and Olympic champion hurdler Liu Xiang.

Still, he remains modest while being compared to those famous names, stressing he will need to achieve more to meet the heroic standards set by China's great athletes.

"The gold medal in Kazan gives me hope. But I have to prove that I am more than a one-night wonder, so I am ready to fight to my utmost at the Olympics next year by following a stricter training regime," he said.

Ning first shot to fame after winning both the 50m and 100m freestyles at the Incheon Asian Games last year and became the new darling of sponsors of the swimming team, following Olympic champion Sun Yang.

However, as an athlete affiliated with the Chinese navy, Ning has been following a rigorous routine managed by longtime mentor Ye Jin and the Chinese Swimming Administration Center. Socializing and entertainment time are limited, and he can only accept commercial endorsements with approval.

Ning, a Henan native, said he's comfortable staying committed to a simple life of training as the path to realize his ultimate potential as a professional athlete.

"I am an easygoing person but I have to learn to say 'no'. My main focus as an athlete is to push in training and to improve my performance for better results," he said.

In response to media comparisons between him and Sun, a distance freestyle specialist, Ning said Sun remains his role model and he would love to help him shoulder the hefty expectations for Chinese swimming at next year's Olympics.

To prepare for the Rio Olympics, Ning seeks to improve his fitness and strength by adjusting his diet during the winter training camp later this year.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 09/30/2015 page10)