At the Miami Superchallenge meet in the Gold Coast, Australia, Sun Yang is back to action and showing off the training that he’s earned from working with former Hackett coach Dennis Cotterell. He swam a 3:42.89 to win the men’s 400 free in the biggest swim of the day. Not only is that the fastest time in the world this year, but it’s faster than anyone went in all of 2011 aside from Park Tae-Hwan.
But now that Sun is 20-years old, there’s a new crop of Chinese teenagers jumping into the distance-freestyle game, and that resulted in the Chinese posting the top three times in the world so far this season. 18-year old Yunqi Li swam a blistering 3:45.49, and 16-year old Yun Hao swam a 3:45.69. Those swims push them to 3rd and 4th on the all-time Chinese swimming rankings list. By comparison, Yun’s time is 5-seconds better than the USA Swimming 15-16 National Age Group Record (though, not as fast as Thorpe’s 3:41 at that same age).
This meet is another sign towards the Chinese swim-pocalypse, which is the worst fear of every other swimming country in the world. As China’s 1.3 billion-strong swimming population becomes more-and-more enamored with swimming (along with that country’s huge investment in the sport), their depth will shortly begin to catch up with their top-end firecrackers.
The concern now becomes if Sun has rested for this meet or not. He has been able to swim fast more than once in-season, but with a 16-year old swimming a 3:45 nipping at his heels, he can’t afford to back off much at the Chinese Trials. Fortunately, his swims last year indicates that Sun can put up a swim like this more than once, and then still go a 3:40 at the Olympics.
He would tack on a 1:46.84 win in the 200 free, with Hao 2nd in 1:48.74; as well as a 49.50 in the 100 free. He chose to sit out the 1500, which is as much an interesting training strategy that implies he’ll try for triple gold in London (200-400-800) by working on his speed now. It also shows a certain confidence in his 1500 that he’s going to be the best regardless of a training swim now.
In the women’s version of the race, another 16-year old Yiwen Shao showed her game with a 4:06.98. Remember that she’s the young swimmer who took out the 1500 at Worlds valiantly before fading at the end. I think that this swim is going to be little more than a warmup for her 800 at the Olympics (she skipped that race at Worlds), and as such its important for her to be good in this race (if she’s going to try and repeat her hard-charging strategy). The 800 seems to be the perfect race for her, and under 8:20 is a minimum goal for her this summer in that race. The runner-up was Australia’s Katie Goldman in 4:07.52. That’s an outstanding time for her, and the 2nd-best in her career in non-major championships. Her better event is the 800, but I expect that she can jump up and challenge Barratt and Palmer for a spot in this 400.
Ti Yang, who has long been hailed as the future of the world’s freestyle for a few years now, continues to improve with a swim of 1:57.75 ahead of Australia’s Jade Nielsen in 1:48.05. Yang didn’t have a great season last year, and this 200 free was faster than she was all of 2011.
Not all of the breakout swims at this meet were from young swimmers, however. 25-year old Yin Chen won the men’s 100 fly in 53.08, which is better than he was all of last season. His better event is the 200 fly; he won that race too, but only in 2:02, which gives mixed-signals about his level of training.
The distance freestyle crew was in good form, though the IM’ers were not quite as explosive. Asian Record holder Shun Wang won both men’s IM races with times of 2:01.29 and 4:17.92. That 400 was a good swim in context, though, and is second in the world this year behind only Michael Phelps.
Liuyang Jiao, the defending silver medalist in the 200 fly, won in 2:09.13, but was better in the shorter 100 in 59.48. Another Olympic medal hopeful, Jing Zhao in 1:01.75, took the women’s 100 back. Neither is a very good time, even if they’re in heavy training, but with the increasing depth of Chinese swimming, they’re probably looking to be at close-to-full rest at Chinese Trials.
The stars of the Australians included young 100-200 specialist Cameron McEvoy. He won the 50 ‘skins’ elimination race with a finals swim of 23,69, with a best was a 23.01 in the first round. He placed 3rd in 51.45 in the 100 free. This isn’t as fast as he’s been, but the multiple rounds of the 50 likely left him a bit tired, combined with the inconsistency of youth.
at the montpelliier meet : some fast time in the men 200 FREE : 1: 1.46.94 AGNEL
2: lefert 1.47 . 84 and 3: 1.48. 76 . i think there are the 2nd , the 3rd and the 9th times in 2012 .
RESULTS at http://www.liveffn.com/cgi-bin/resultats.php?competition=2521&langue=fra&go=epreuve&epreuve=73
The rain was torrential all day through heats session and into the night so it really was surprising to see so many fast times produced. Also, competitors were backing-up from a full week of heavy training, plus minimal rest between races and between heats and finals session. Denis certainly didn’t expect the times produced on the night – he thought they would be fast, but not THAT FAST!
SInce you probably had first hand experience, what were the conditions at the Miami meet like this year? A swimmer on twitter described it as torrential rain. How bad were the conditions? how much do you think it affected the swimmers and were the fast times surprising to the teams/coaches?
Haha …must be outdated profile – he’s been coming to us for 3 years now and I don’t think he was ever 5’6″ – even on his first trip 🙂
Agree with John26 re earlier physical maturation of swimmers of Asian descent – caucasians, both boys and girls, unfortunately have to usually wait quite a few years longer to reach their peak in swimming so it’s really tough when “age comparisons” are made. There certainly are no short, skinny Chinese swimmers on pool deck at Miami – they are all unusually tall, long-limbed and very well muscled.
http://www.gz2010.cn/info/ENG/ZB/ZBB101A_SW@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ENG_number=202480.htm
This may be outdated, but this is for the Asian Games 2010
To start off with – Sun Yang and all the chinese are possibly some of the worlds most amazing trainers. My daughter trains with them whilst in Australia and the stories that she comes home with are just amazing – ones of real strength and character; not drug abuse. They train hard – more than hard. anyone can tell you that. Are you doubting the credibility of one of the world’s most legendary distance coaches??? By the way Wang Shun is not under 6ft – he stands at about 6ft 2inches – 6ft 3inches.
I think Phelps in ’08 could’ve put times that would’ve match Thorpe even in the 400m, but a lot of this has to do with his underwaters, which could easily provide a second in the 200, and even more in the 400.
As was very clearly illustrated in ’07 when Phelps was basically pit against Thorpe’s WR, he gained valuable tenths against WR pace, but the line was clearly catching him by the end of the race. In terms of on-top-of-the-water free style, Thorpe is unmatched by anyone in history except possibly Sun Yang. I know there are a lot of fans of the statement “if Thorpe had Phelps’ turns he would’ve been able to go [insert insane, possibly incredulous,… Read more »