Cesar Cielo guarantees spot at World Championships of swimming

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 6 (Xinhua) -- In the 50 meters freestyle event at the Maria Lenk Trophy swim meet, Cesar Cielo won on Wednesday with a time of 21.33 seconds. The victory and time are good enough to guarantee his participation in this year's World Championships in Rome.

Wearing an old suit that had to be cut in the hamstring at the last minute in order to provide room for the athlete, Cielo came close to his gold medal winning performance in Beijing last year. He stated that the new world record of 20.94 seconds set by Frenchswimmer Fred Bousquet, is not as far away as he imagined.

"I was surprised with my time today. I now see that the world record is closer than I thought and not as scary as I had imagined. My race today had its flaws. I needed to take some extrabreaths that ended up slowing me down. There is definitely the possibility of bettering my time and chasing the world record," analyzed Cielo after Wednesday's competition.

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Serena Williams out of Rome Masters

ROME, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Serena Williams lost to Patty Schnyder in her first match at the Rome Masters on Tuesday.

Williams, playing her first match in almost a month, appeared to be moving with difficulty at times during her 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 loss on clay at Foro Italico.

Dinara Safina, the player who overtook the top spot from Williams, bumped off Virginie Razzano of France 7-6 (1), 6-1.

Defending champion Jelena Jankovic and French Open champion AnaIvanovic all advanced to the third round, as play was disrupted by rain and went late into the night.

Williams was broken twice in the first set, came back in the second set but the 2002 champion went down 5-0 in the third, and fell for the first time before the quarterfinals in nine visits to Rome. Williams also lost three consecutive tour matches for the first time since the end of 2007.

Schnyder, ranked 20th, won for the fourth time in 12 matches with Williams, and second time in Rome.

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Book doctor rescues old documents

A specialist in the Chinese capital is working on restoring ancient images of a different kind -- words, not pictures. Sixty-year-old Du Weisheng works as a researcher at the rare book division of China's National Library in Beijing. Over the years, he's been racing against time to rescue ancient tomes and scripts that have been damaged by water, moulding from improper storage and chewed on by rats.

Du Weisheng is in a race against time to rescue old documents that are falling apart.

The book doctor says some of the books he fixes require extreme concentration and patience.

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imagesofadifferentkind--words,notpictures

He uses a special glue and rice paper that are of similar colour to patch up thousands of visible or invisible holes on book pages with the help of a magnifier.

However, this is the easiest part of his job.

Many books have been soaked by flood waters for a long time and have never properly dried.

Most of their pages are stuck together.

Many more older books simply fall into fragmentary pieces once touched.

Du says erosion happens too fast and with a small staff of 19 people in the rare book division, it is impossible to fix all the books that need to be rescued.

Du Weisheng said, "Books we need to fix take up to a third of the collection in the library, which is around 2 million books. A third of that makes it around 700,000 books. About 20 percent of the 700,000 books need urgent fixing, which means more than 100,000 books are in very bad condition. We fix about 1,000 books per year and the best we can do is no more than 2,000. This means it's going to take us a very, very long time before we can finish this task".

During a career spanning 35 years, Du has fixed close to 5,000 ancient books himself.

Du says that the solution for the future is to digitalise all the materials before they are gone.

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Coming attractions: May 5th May 16th

We will introduce you to some of the best films, plays, concerts that are sure to leave you with an array of exciting choices during your free time. So why don't you start marking your calendar, if films and shows are your cup of tea.

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" on screening

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" the superhero film based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Wolverine is showing in movie theatres across the Chinese mainland. It is a prequel to the X-Men film trilogy. It focuses on the mutant Wolverine and his time with Team X, before Wolverine's skeleton was bonded with the indestructible metal -- adamantium. Set roughly twenty years before X-Men, the film focuses on Wolverine's violent past and his early encounters with William Stryker. The Weapon X program is explored as is Wolverine's interactions with other mutants, including his relationship with half-brother, Sabretooth.

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Federer marries long-time girlfriend

BASEL -- World No 2 tennis player Roger Federer married longtime girlfriend Mirka Vavrinec on Saturday in a small ceremony in his hometown.

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FedererandhisgirlfriendMirkaVavrinecposeforphotographers
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Spain.FederermarriedhisfianceeMirkaVavrinecinhishome
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announcedonhiswebsite.[Agencies]

The 27-year-old Swiss announced the wedding on his website, saying the couple got married "surrounded by a small group of close friends and family".

"It was a beautiful spring day and an incredibly joyous occasion," he said.

The couple announced last month they are expecting their first child.

Federer is set to play in next week's Monte Carlo Masters, after accepting a last-minute wild card invitation on Thursday. Federer is a three-time finalist at the clay-court tournament but has never won.

After struggling with his form last year and losing his No 1 ranking to Rafael Nadal, Federer is aiming for his sixth Wimbledon title this summer. He lost to Nadal in the Australian Open final, the year's first major.