19TH ASIAN GAMES
- Sunday, September 24th – Friday, September 29th (swimming)
- Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Aquatic Sports Arena, Hangzhou, China
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- Entries
- Results
We previewed how 29-year-old Wang Shun of China was eyeing 200m IM glory at the 19th Asian Games and the Olympic champion made his goal happen in a big way.
Competing on day one in Hangzhou in front of a home crowd, Wang crushed the fastest 200m IM time of his career, getting to the wall in a monster 1:54.62. That not only grabbed the gold handily, but it also established a new national and Asian Record in the process.
Entering this competition, Wang held the Chinese national record with his best-ever outing of 1:55.00, a result he produced en route to taking the gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
Flash forward to tonight, however, and Wang dipped under the 1:55 barrier for the first time ever, becoming the 3rd-swiftest performer in history in the process.
Top 5 Men’s LCM 200 IM Performers All-Time
- Ryan Lochte (USA) – 1:54.00, 2011
- Michael Phelps (USA) – 1:54.16, 2011
- Wang Shun (CHN) – 1:54.62, 2023
- Leon Marchand (FRA) – 1:54.82, 2023
- Kosuke Hagino (JPN) – 1:55.07, 2016
In this evening’s race, teammate and 200m breaststroke World Record holder Qin Haiyang came in second in a time of 1:57.41 while Japan’s Daiya Seto bagged the bronze in 1:58.35.
Splits for Shun’s breakthrough performance included the following:
24.53
28.85
33.56
27.68
1:54.62
Remarkably, Wang missed out on the 2IM final at this year’s World Championships, relegated to 11th place in 1:57.97.
Wang said of what he wants to get out of his performances this week in Hangzhou, “I just want to do what’s in front of me and think about getting a better result. My only goal is to stick to myself and give my all.”
Post-race, 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?”
After the race, he was reported to have said “Everybody have fun tonight!”
He can break the scm world record for sure. He was 1:56 in the LCM 200 IM when he was 1:51 in SCM
1:54’s are BACK
After his poor performance at Worlds, someone mentioned that he was probably just saving his taper for Asian Games given he’s an older athlete. I wasn’t sure about that given China’s great performance there. Looks like that commenter was right.
Also, what a quote at the end. “To all those people who said, I’m done, are you done now?”
Yep, his comment after the race is pure GOLD!!!
I love how elite athletes can just find something extra when others are doubting them, really is a defining attribute of “elite”.
The Chinese have been targeting to achieve their peak performances for this Asian Games as it is held in their home nation, especially those from the Zhejiang province. It’s no wonder so many records have been broken.
PB at 29 yo…
Absolutely glorious. Love this!
29 isn’t old for an athlete. Physically men don’t peak till they’re mid 30’s. Swimming is just an exception because the mental burnout cause’s athletes to phone it in in their early 20’s.
That’s not true. Male athletes peak athletically in their mid to late 20s
I think the peak is flatter than we have been led to believe. Especially in swimming where minute technical improvements can result in time drops that outweigh a small loss of strength. There was a study done between young and old men (<25 and >50 iirc) regarding strength training, where both groups improved by the same percentage over the course of the study. The difference was that the mechanism of improvement was different: the older men primarily saw improvements in muscle fiber activation while the younger men primarily gained strength through muscle hypertrophy.
Since it’s not like your body just flips a switch at 35 and suddenly you can’t gain any muscle at all, I think it’s fair to… Read more »
It depends on the sport
There’s different aging curves for different sports, positions, distances etc.
Cam McEvoy 29
Sarah Sjostrom 30
I think the performances of Chinese swimmers at this meet really show how pressure can affect you and how much of a mental game swimming can be. At this meet China are the top dogs and it’s not very close. So, mentally it’s just less stressful for that athletes, which allows them to show what they are truly capable of. Can’t wait for Paris.
What have these Chinese athletes been eating for breakfast this year? At this trajectory they could very well be the top performing swimming nation at Paris.