19TH ASIAN GAMES
- Sunday, September 24th – Friday, September 29th (swimming)
- Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Aquatic Sports Arena, Hangzhou, China
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- Entries
- Results
- Day 2 Finals Live Recap
- Day 3 Finals Live Recap
The final event on day three of the 2023 Asian Games nearly saw a World Record go down, as China put up one of the fastest men’s 4x100m medley relays in history.
Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang, Wang Changhao and Pan Zhanle combined to collectively clock a winning time of 3:27.01, a mark just .23 outside of the current WR set by the United States at the 2020 Olympic Games.
Korea snagged silver in a national record-setting result of 3:32.05 while Japan rounded out the top 3 this evening in 3:32.52.
Already the men’s 100m backstroke victor here on day one in a time of 52.53, Olympic medalist Xu opened the race with a blistering 52.05 on backstroke. That performance knocked well over a second off of the 53.39 opener Xu produced during the previous Asian Record-setting relay notched at this year’s World Championships.
Then on-fire breaststroker and newly-minted 200m WR holder Qin carried the speed with a head-turning leg of 57.63.
Another game-changing split came on butterfly, with Wang firing off a big-time 50.68, blowing his World Championships leg of 51.56 to bits.
Finally, Pan sealed the deal with another sub-47 second outing of 46.65 to help nail the 3:27.01 result, a time which would have won the gold at this year’s World Championships.
| New Asian Record (CHN) | Current World Record (USA) | Old Asian Record (CHN) |
| Xu Jiayu – 52.05 | Ryan Murphy – 52.31 | Xu Jiayu – 53.39 |
| Qin Haiyang – 57.63 | Michael Andrew – 58.49 | Qin Haiyang – 57.43 |
| Wang Changhao – 50.68 | Caeleb Dressel – 49.03 | Wang Changhao – 51.56 |
| Pan Zhanle – 46.65 | Zach Apple – 46.95 | Pan Zhanle – 46.62 |
| 3:27.01 | 3:26.78 | 3:29.00 |
The performance now renders China the #2 performing nation ever in the men’s 4x100m medley relay.
Top 10 Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay Performers All-Time
- USA – 3:26.78, 2021
- CHN – 3:27.01, 2023
- GBR – 3:27.51, 2021
- ITA – 3:27.51, 2022
- GER – 3:28.58, 2009
- AUS – 3:28.64, 2009
- RUS – 3:28.81, 2019
- BRA – 3:29.16, 2009
- FRA – 3:29.73, 2009
- JPN – 3:29.91, 2021
What are people’s thoughts on South Korea’s Choi Dong-yeol back to breast takeover? It appears as though he went really deep on the dive and came up a good body length past the 15m rope.
you are allowed to past 15m in Breast pull outs
They went every split faster than fly 😵💫😵💫😵💫
Do they care more about Asian Games than Worlds?
Before Fukuoka, I already thought they will win worlds based on their individual SBs/PBs
Do we really think this is all on the up and up?
Yes, no reason to suspect as these are all established stars swimming at home
That 49.03 split by Dressel is monumental.
Well sh*t…..
Nuts. Will they be able to replicate it next year? If all 4 swimmers can just repeat their best times from this year then the WR is gone. However, even in this year alone they’ve been a little up and down. I definitely think China will be a much bigger factor next year than they were in Tokyo (and they didn’t do badly in Tokyo at all) but whether all 4 of their legs will fire in the relay on the final day will be interesting to see