Two teenage prodigies from China are shedding light on a puzzling age divide in international sports. Seventeen-year-old javelin thrower Yan Ziyi has been barred from the 2025 World Athletics Championships for not yet meeting the minimum age requirements to compete, despite ranking among the best in the world. On the other hand, Yu Zidi, a 12-year-old swimmer who has made worldwide headlines, raced at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.
Yan, who was born in 2008, has already produced throws that compete with current international talent, placing her third on the world list in the women’s javelin. Yan set the U20 world record in the javelin with a throw of 64.28 meters in April of 2024 at the China Athletics GP. Earlier that same year, Yan won the national championship in Tianjin with her throw of 61.31 meters.
But World Athletics rules prevent anyone under the age of 16 from competing at World Championships, but for some disciplines, such as throwing events, the marathon, and race walking, that age minimum is raised to 18.
Some opinions argue that the age requirements are a necessary rule to preserve an athlete’s performance long-term. Others believe that if an athlete demonstrates exceptional talent, such as Yan, they should be granted the chance to compete.
Swimming takes a different approach to championship qualification. Braden Kieth touched on this in an article in August:
Current World Aquatics rules say that athletes must be at least 14 years of age on December 31st of the current year to compete at the World Championships or Olympic Games in swimming. It allows exceptions in cases like Yu, where swimmers have achieved at least the ‘B’ Standard Entry Time in the respective event.
World Aquatics plans to review the age limit rule for future competitions.
She clocked 2:10.63 in the 200 IM and a 2:06.83 in the 200 butterfly at Chinese Nationals, both unprecedented for her age. In Singapore, she advanced to the 200 IM final, missing the podium by just six-hundredths of a second, and contributed to China’s bronze medal in the 4×200 freestyle relay by swimming in prelims.
The contrast between Yan and Yu has fueled debate. In track and field, the line is firmly drawn at 18 for certain events, and 16 for the rest. In swimming, the door is open as long as the time says so.
Both Yan and Yu have shown strong glimpses of future international potential, but their immediate paths vary. Yan will have to bide her time in junior and domestic competitions despite her world-class results, while Yu is already racing—and succeeding—on some of swimming’s grandest platforms.
Even more ridiculous,
Yu Zidi was not too young to swim at 2025 World Aquatics Championship, but too young to swim at 2025 World JUNIOR championship.
The age limit rule imposed by World Athletics is pointless given that there be possibilities that prodigies, serveral out of 7 billions, are born to belie the credibility & reasonableness of the rule.
Word Aquatics fine-tuned the rule with prophetical fine prints to have genial kids like Yu avoid missing the boat while World Athletics seems to abide by its rigidity without taking any exceptions into account.
13 (?) year old ElliReese Niday won the 10m diving at USA summer nationals but couldn’t go to worlds because she was too young. Next time!
It is interesting the WA has age rules, so Yu was too young to swim at the Junior World Championships.
If they make ‘A’ cuts let them swim.
Otherwise, the age limits are useful to eliminate the “Olympians” who are just the kids or local favorites of WA officials from small swimming countries who are not otherwise legitimate competitors.
Another dumb rule: USA Swimming’s ban on 12u tech suits. Pick a lane and either ban them (with real enforcement) including championship meets or don’t. The rest of the world has somehow figured it out and aren’t trying to over parent athletes :/
Lol.
Your way of thinking about that is skewed. 12 and unders don’t need tech suits to swim fast. You sound like an angry 12 yr old dad that’s son can’t swim in one that his 13 yo friend wants to give him.
Agree.
Suit restrictions should be based on the meet, not the age. If a 12 year old qualifies for Sectionals, they should be entitled to wear the same suit the rest of the competitors are wearing.
Unpopular opinion, they should be barred for everything but the highest level meets, no age group meets at all. Think High school state champs, Sectionals and beyond.
But then how would TYR, Speedo, etc make money?
Interesting paradox. I think figure skating and gymnastics have minimum age requirements too. Little league baseball has pitch limits. I don’t know if these measures are effective in preventing over training injuries in young athletes, but it seems a lot of sports have them in place. Should a prodigy being competitive at an elite level trump the safety of their peers as a whole? Maybe these types of rules are meant to curtail coaches breaking their athletes by giving them too big a workload before their bodies are ready?
I think figure skating and gymnastics are different because being small actually helps you. In swimming or throwing, it’s not an advantage to be small, so the only reason to age restrict is athlete protection in the long term, which in my opinion shouldn’t be up to the governing body but rather the coaches and athletes affected.
Interesting point. An issue that I can see with that though, is coach education, skill, and experience varies widely. A inexperienced, unskilled, and/or poorly educated coach may not be able to protect their athletes from debilitating injury. I guess my point is, governing bodies do have some responsibility for protecting the athletes. The real debate I think boils down to how that protection is enacted. Through restrictions on the athlete’s ability to compete, or through control/oversight of the coaching. Either way, you’re going to end up with problems and gaps.
Baseball is known to cause arm injuries in high level pitchers, not just in kids (though non-mature arms are especially vulnerable) to the point where a guy managing to make the big leagues without having some type of major arm injury requiring surgery is ab anomaly.Throwing a baseball with the velocity and movement needed to be competitive is not a natural movement for human shoulders and elbows. Little League has decided it’s not worth it to have 12 year olds risk arm surgery so they put limits on not just how many pitches a kid can throw but also how many days they need to rest before pitching again.
A made up swimming equivalent would be more along the lines… Read more »
There is no guarantee that these athletes will progress..if they are world class now, holding them back is making premature assumptions about their future.
Popovici is a great example of this. He turned 21 a few days ago, but he set his fastest 200 free time at 17. Talk about stagnation!
But he improved in the 100. Probably just shows that the choices he made to improve in the 100 weren’t ideal for his 200 but it’s not like he was far off his best anyway.