Saying he just wants to help her prepare to achieve her dream of someday swimming across the English Channel, a father tied his daughter's hands and feet and watched her swim in a chilly southern China river for three hours Tuesday.

In an interview, Huang Daosheng said her daughter, Huang Li, 10, swam more than a mile in the Xiang River on Tuesday, traveling with the current.

The elder Huang likened the girl to a swimming dolphin, sometimes paddling with her bound hands.

"Her swimming skills are perfect and she insisted on doing this," said Daosheng adding it was his daughter's own idea after seeing something similar on a local television program.

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

This summer, an eight-year-old Zhuang Huimin ran 2,212 miles from her home on the southern island province of Hainan to Beijing in 55 days with her father trailing behind her on a motor scooter.

The run however drew criticism from some media commentators as excessive for a young child.

This time, a newspaper report said Huang Li, who lives in the city of Zhangjiajie in Hunan province, was so cold her face had turned blue, which her father simply brushed aside.

"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."

Daosheng, a teacher who enjoys swimming, coaches his daughter personally since he claims his family does not have enough money for her to hire a better coach.

The father adds that Huang Li started swimming when she was six her ultimate goal of 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.