After some average swims earlier in this meet in the 200-800 freestyles, China’s Sun Yang really puffed out his chest on day 6 at the 2012 Chinese Olympic Trials in Shaoxing when his signature event, the 1500 free, rolled up on the schedule.
Yang posted a 14:42.30 for the win, and in the process swam the 14th-fastest 1500-meter swim in history. More significantly – for a swimmer who is routinely fast in-season (and hasn’t looked as much so at this meet), that’s the best that anybody, including him, has been outside of a big international championship meet (though, Ous Mellouli in 2009 did swim a 14:38 at the 2009 Mediterranean Games just a month out from that year’s World Championships, so its unlikely he was fully rested for that swim).
I think that with this swim, Sun is easily ready to repeat his World-Record swim from last summer. I think we could, in fact, see as low as a 14:33 or 14:32 at the Olympics, depending on how big he loads up his meet schedule (this is the last men’s race on the Olympic schedule).
In the women’s 50 free final, Yin Fan won in 25.24, followed by Yi Tang in 25.30, neither of which was faster than the Olympic automatic qualifying standard. Tang’s swim was especially disappointing; after starting the meet with a great 100 free, she has struggled going both up to the 200 free and down to the 50 free.
The Chinese still haven’t found their sprint-stride, with the men’s 50 going to Shi Yang in only 22.51.
The women’s 200 backstroke, though with some impressive depth (the top 8 were all 2:12.0’s or better), was fairly slow at the top. The win went to Yu Yaping in 2:09.71, with 2010 world-leader Zhao Jing reaffirming her decision from last year to focus on the 100 back instead.
The women’s 100 breast was better, but only marginally so. Sun Ye won in 1:07.30, which is about where she wants to be this far out of the Olympics. Liu Xiaoyu took 2nd in 1:07.88, though the smart money will be on Ji Liping (.02 behind in 1:07.90) to instead absorb the second spot in this race.
