2024 CHINESE NATIONAL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Friday, April 19th – Sunday, April 27th
- Shenzhen, China
- LCM (50m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap/Day 5 Recap/Day 6 Recap/Day 7 Recap/Day 8 Recap/Day 9 Recap
- Results
- Livestream
With the penultimate day of action unfolding tonight at the 2024 Chinese National Swimming Championships we’re taking stock of some of the most impressive performances put up at the Olympic-qualifying competition.
Although most headlines involved powerhouse senior athletes Pan Zhanle, Zhang Yufei and Qin Haiyang, we kept our eyes on an 11-year-old female named Yu Zidi.
We already reported how Yu turned in 2 eye-catching swims in the 400m IM and 400m free. The young budding star turned in times of 4:40.97 and 4:10.73, respectively, to put her name on the map of ones to watch.
But the 11-year-old was in the water several times outside of those 2 performances taking on a hefty schedule which totaled a massive 10 events.
Yu wound up nailing personal bests in 9 of these races, wreaking havoc on multiple distances.
We’ve listed them below with where she would rank among all-time American 11-12-year-old girls just as a point of comparison.
11-Yr-Old Yu Zidi‘s Performances at the 2024 Chinese National Championships
- 50m free – 26.41, #3
- 100m free – 56.32, #1
- 200m free -2:00.32, #1
- 400m free – 4:10.73, #1
- 800m free – 8:45.47, #1
- 1500m free – 16:46.40, #1
- 100 back – 1:05.06, #12
- 100m breast – 1:14.41, #30
- 200m fly – 2:14.04, #1
- 400m IM – 4:40.97, #1
The South China Morning Post reports that ‘Yu was born in Baoding, Hebei province in October 2012. When she was nine years old, she was scouted at a swimming meet and offered the chance to move to neighbouring city Hengshui so that she could train at Club Swimming and join the provincial team.’
“Yu Zidi came to the club in December 2021 for the Hebei Provincial Swimming Training programme,” a spokesman for Club Swimming said.
“The club regularly undertakes training sessions for Hebei’s young swimmers and selects talents from these sessions.’ (SCMP)
These times can’t be real 😭 how does an 11 year old even swim THIS fast
Well… there are ca 1.2B people in PRC, so I suppose there is a non-negligible probability that one of them is this ridiculously gifted as a swimmer, but fast@11 does not guarantee fast@13 or faster @17, especially for a female.
Especially in China too. China overworks their athletes which leads to a lot of them retiring young.
Same with Russia.
Yes their training philosophy is still old school, lots of yardage and not a lot of consideration given to mental health.
Also there’s a very competitive atmosphere with pressure to do well.
China is known for producing young athletes that achieved mindboggling age records, but only a few sustained that excellence to senior ranks
The fastest 12 year old boy in the US went 4:17 last summer. This is insane.
The most likely story is the swimmer isn’t 11.
I would hate it if my parents were friends with this kids parents growing up
And here I am just happy if my 11-12 age grouper girls pace a race properly and don’t forget the technique we work on in practice.
and they do decent turns with good streamlines lol. I was pumped when my fastest 12 year old girl went a 2:01 2 FR last year….in SCY
Video???
Government scouts at swim meets…only in China.
Also BAODING REPRESENT yessir!!
My tiny brain can’t comprehend an eleven yr old swimming a 4:10/400. Like, this is probably a sub 4:40 500, right?