Key Stories from the 2021 China National Games (Post-Meet Digest)

2021 CHINA NATIONAL GAMES

• Sunday, September 19th – Sunday, September 26th (swimming)
• Xi’an Olympic Sports Center Swimming and Diving Hall, Shaanxi, China
• LCM (50m)
• Results

The 2021 China National Games were completed over the weekend, with one week of action taking place at the Xi’an Olympic Sports Center Swimming and Diving Hall. Athletes to the tune of Zhang Yufei, Yan Zibei and Xu Jiayu took to their local long course waters at this prestigious multi-sport national event, which is held just once every four years.

Missed our daily recaps of the 8-day event? We’ve got you covered with the key swims and takeaways from the meet.

Meet Notes

• Olympic gold medalist in the 200m IM, Wang Shun, was the flag bearer for the China National Games at the event’s opening ceremony.
• The competition marked the first sporting event to be held in the nation with spectators since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Spectators reportedly had to provide a negative COVID-19 test result certificate within 72 hours prior to entering any venues.

Records Broken

• Yu Hexin posted a new Chinese national record in the men’s 50m freestyle on the final day of the meet. Hitting a time of 21.68, Yu registered the only sub-22 second time of the field, knocking .11 off of his own previous Chinese standard
• Teenager Tang Muhan put up a new national record in the women’s 200m freestyle at just 18 years of age. She stopped the clock in a big-time mark of 1:54.26 to take down the previous record of 1:54.37 this weekend’s runner-up Yang Junxuan just registered as lead-off on the world record-setting women’s 800m free relay in Tokyo. Tang was also on that relay.
• Liu Xiang became the first Chinese woman ever to dip under the 24-second barrier in the 50m freestyle, producing a new national record of 23.97. Her time beat out the 24.03 national record she logged last year at the 2020 FINA Champions Series. Her time over the weekend also scored a new Asian continental record in the women’s 50m free event.

Other Notable Swims

• Asian record holder Yan Zibei raced his way to a time of 58.87 in the semi-final of the men’s 100m breaststroke here, a time that was faster than the 58.99 he put up at the Tokyo Olympic Games to tie American Andrew Wilson for 6th place. However, Yan ultimately touched in a time of 59.03, still taking China National Games gold.
• The aforementioned Wang Shun crushed an impressive 200m IM outing of 1:56.33 to beat the field by over 2 seconds. He took gold in Tokyo in a massive 1:55.00. Among other events, Wang also got it done in the men’s 200m free in a mark of 1:46.14.
• 22-year-old Yu Jingyao busted out a super quick 100m breaststroke outing of 1:05.63 to top the podium. While Yu didn’t swim at the Tokyo Olympic Games where China entered only one swimmer in the women’s 100 breaststroke, her time from this week would have placed her 4th in an event where China had no finalists.
• Multi-Olympic medalist at this summer’s Olympic Games, Zhang Yufei, made some noise in the women’s 100m fly, clocking a speedy time of 56.24. That not only beat the field by nearly 2 1/2 seconds, but it sits just outside the list of the top 10 performances ever produced by Chinese female swimmers.