2025 CHINESE NATIONAL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- May 17-24, 2025
- Shenzhen, China
- LCM (50 meters)
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap/Day 5 Recap/Day 6 Recap/Day 7 Recap
- Results
The final day of the 2025 Chinese National Swimming Championships brought another monster swim at the hands of 12-year-old Yu Zidi, once again blowing our minds with what we thought was possible.
Racing in the final of the women’s 400m IM this evening, Yu crushed a lifetime best of 4:35.53 to take the gold. Not a typo – 4:35.53 from the 12-year-old.
Runner-up status went to Chang Mohan who touched in 4:37.33 followed by Li Bingjie who earned bronze in 4:38.66.
Just like that, Yu becomes China’s 8th-swiftest performer in history with tonight’s head-turning performance.
Splits for Yu’s incredible achievement are below
Entering this competition, Yu’s lifetime best rested at the 4:40.97 established last year…..as an 11-year-old. That means tonight’s outing marks her first-ever foray under the 4:40 barrier and she did so by hacking over 5 seconds off of that previous best-ever swim.
She now ranks 5th in the world on the season and easily cleared the World Aquatics ‘A’ standard of 4:43.06 needed for Singapore.
2024-2025 LCM Women 400 IM
McIntosh
4:26.98
| 2 | Emma WEYANT | USA | 4:33.95 | 05/02 |
| 3 | Ellen Walshe | IRL | 4:35.32 | 05/02 |
| 4 | Mio NARITA | JPN | 4:35.39 | 03/23 |
| 5 | Yu Zidi | CHN | 4:35.53 | 05/24 |
For perspective as to how otherworldly Yu’s 4:35.53 is, the U.S. National Age Group Record for 11-12-year-old girls sits at the 4:50.70 Kayla Han established in 2021. The 11-12-year-old boys’ national benchmark rests at the 4:42.54 Richard Poplawski put on the books in 2019.
Yu’s performance crushes both of those standards as well as exceeds the 13-14-year-old girls’ U.S. NAG of 4:39.76 Becca Mann put up in 2012.
Summer McIntosh of Canada, the reigning Olympic champion and world record holder in the women’s 400m IM, holds the Canadian national age record at 4:50.21 for the 11-12-year-old age group, a time from 2019. That’s now game-changing Yu’s swim is, that she beats the phenom McIntosh’s best mark at that age by about 15 seconds.
Furthermore, Yu’s time tonight would have made her the 6th-place finisher at the 2023 World Championships and the top podium finisher at the lesser-attended 2024 World Championships in Doha.
Remarkably, Yu’s 4:35.53 would have placed her 4th in last year’s Olympic Games final, just over half a second outside of the bronze medal.
The youngster has already qualified for this summer’s World Championships in the women’s 200m IM and 200m fly, posting nearly-beyond-comprehension marks of 2:10.63 and 2:06.83, respectively.
This is amazing, congratulations to her 👏👏👏.
with katie grimes being washed i think if she drops even a second at world she gets bronze bcs its only weyent and mcintosh faster then her
Really difficult for a child to do well in their first rodeo at an international meet. It’s likely we get some insane times at their national games in November but I doubt she’ll put down PBs at Worlds.
Yu’s PB
100 Free 54.78
200 Free 1.58.03
400 Free 4.10.73（2024.04）
800 Free 8.45.47 （2024.04）
1500 Free 16.46.40（2024.04）
100 Back 1.02.88
100 Breast 1.12.98
100 Fly 1.01.62（2024.08）
200 Fly 2.06.83
200 IM 2.10.63
400 IM 4.35.53
Even without considering her age,she is already a top-level athlete in multiple events.
At USA club parent meeting…
Coach: “blah, blah, blah…long term athlete development planning…”
Parent thinking: “this coach doesn’t know what they’re doing”
How rare is it to see a teenage podium at WC or OLY…. Curious what some of the youngest podiums (1-3) have looked like over the years.
This would make a killer article. Maybe Thorpe and Hackett would’ve had some young 1-2’s but not sure about 3rd.
After thinking about it – I’m sure there are some other good ideas (with lots of meticulous research that SS is renowned for).
Largest age difference in an international podium
Youngest podiums
Oldest podiums
3 different decade podiums (doubt it’s happened but there are always some anomaly’s out there.)
Parent-child podium (doubt that has ever happened but who knows)
The craziest part about this is if she made the podium it wouldn’t be a teenage podium
Dang I hope this is legit. Amazing.
So Zidi’s 100 fly split is faster than Audrey Derivaux’s 1:01.41 11-12 NAG record. Her 50 fly split is only 0.4 behind Claire Curzan’s 27.91 11-12 NAG record.
she already went out 28.1/1.00.7 in the 2fly so
As a non-swimmer the thing I could see when compared to other older swimmers in the other lanes was her rhythm. It reminds me of how Gidey runs.
I wonder if it has to do with her lower muscle density and her ability to have good endurance to hold her stroke together. You will often see age groupers struggle when they start adding muscle or experience body changes as all humans do at that age.