Wang Shun is a versatile Chinese swimmer, specializing in the medley events. He is a 3x Olmypian and Olympic champion in the 200 IM.
Wang began swimming at the age of six and 10 years later he represented China for the first time at the Asian Games where he earned a silver medal in the 200 meter individual medley.
He currently trains under Zhu Zhigen at the Zhejiang swimming team while studying Business Administration at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
2012 London Olympic Games
In his Olympic debut at 18-years-old, Wang finished 22nd in the 200 meter individual medley in 2:00.85.
2013-2014 Season
At the 2013 Chinese Nationals, Wang broke the national record in the 400 meter individual medley in 4:09.10. A year later at his second Asian Games, he won a bronze medal in the 200 meter individual medley in 1:59.10.
2015 FINA World Championships
In Kazan, Wang won his first World Championship medal when he finished third in the 200 meter individual medley. He finished behind USA’s Ryan Lochte and Brazil’s Thiago Pereira in a personal best time and Chinese Record of 1:56.81.
2016 Rio Olympic Games
In Rio, Wang became the first Chinese swimmer to earn an Olympic medal in the 200 meter individual medley when he won a bronze medal. He finished in 1:57.05 behind USA’s Michael Phelps and Japan’s Kosuke Hagino. He also swam the 400 meter medley were he finished 10th in 4:14.46.
2017 World Championships
Wang picked up a bronze in the 200 IM again touching in 1:56.28 behind USA’s Chase Kalisz and Japan’s Kosuke Hagino. He stormed back in 27.89, the fastest freestyle split in the field.
2018 Asian Games
Wang won a hat trick of medals on Jakarta, including gold in the 200 IM (1:56.52), bronze in the 400 IM (4:12.31), and silver in the men’s 4×200 free relay, where he split 1:46.53 on the third leg.
2018 Short Course World Championships
Wang won the gold medal in the 200 IM (personal best 1:51.01) and finished seventh in the 100 IM (51.95).
Wang picked up a bronze medal as a part of the 4×200 freestyle relay.
2020 Olympic Games
After moving through the prelims and semi-finals as the top seed in the 200 IM, Wang Shun made the most of his position in lane 4. Swimming a strategic race through all 4 strokes, Shun asserted himself on the last 50 to touch first, winning Olympic gold in 1:55.00.
2022(3) Asian Games (Hangzhou, China)
Wang’s meet started off with a bang. In the 200 IM on night 1, Wang crushed a massive time of 1:54.62 to become #3 in history behind Lochte (1:54.00) and Phelps (1:54.16). That was .20 seconds faster than Leon Marchand won the 2023 World Championships in. On his way to a new Asian and National record, Wang split 24.53/28.85/33.56/27.68.
Post-race, a 29-year-old Wang stated, “I said [before the Games] I’ll let the flag rise at my hometown and I did it. For me, breaking my own Asian Record is more precious than the gold itself. Age is just a number. To all those people who said, I’m done, are you done now?”
The next night, he led off in the 800 free relay, with a very solid 1:45.96. Niu Guangsheng (1:46.68), Wang Haoyu (1:45.99), and Pan Zhanle (1:44.77) followed him up to help China to silver and a new national record of 7:03.40.
Wang’s other individual medal was a bronze in the 400 IM, finishing a distant 3rd with a 4:15.12 but Wang raked in the hardware as a prelims relay swimmer. He led off in a 49.12 in the 400 free relay prelims. China took gold in the final. On the 400 medley relay, he was a speedy 53.87 on back in prelims. China won gold in Asian-record fashion in the final. He did the same thing on the mixed version of the 400 medley relay, leading off with a solid 53.80 in prelims as the finals team took yet another gold.
