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With sport becoming even more popular in China during the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games,  a 10-year-old Chinese girl is aiming to cross the English channel by swimming  in a tributary of the Yangtze river with her feet tied together and her arms bound.

Huang Li moves through the water like a dolphin, and is said to cover nearly two miles in three hours. She is coached by her father Huang Daosheng who binds her limbs before she jumps into the water. He says Li hopes to enter the Guinness Book of Records.

The International Swimming Federation warned that the practice was potentially lethal and other experts fear the exercise regime could damage the girl's body and affect her growth.

But Mr Huang rejected the claims and says he would never put his daughter in danger.

Mr Huang, a teacher, coaches his daughter because the family do not have enough money for a professional trainer.

During the training sessions Li has her ankles tied with string and hands bound with strips of cloth. She then leaps into the water for hours at a time. People who watched a practice session this week said she was so cold her face turned blue.

It is the latest endurance feat which has raised questions over the treatment of children in China.

Li's training follows that of Zhang Huimin, eight, who ran 2,225 miles from the province of Hainan to Beijing, covering the equivalent of one-and-a-half marathons a day while her father followed on a motorised bicycle.