Yu Hexin Lights It Up With 21.83 50 Free Prelim

CHINESE OLYMPIC TRIALS #1

  • Friday, April 30th – Saturday, May 8th
  • Qingdao, China
  • Primary Olympic Qualifier
  • LCM (50m)
  • Results via Asian Media

Competing on day 7 of the Chinese Olympic Trials #1, on-fire Zhang Yufei busted out the fastest 50m freestyle time of her career to snag the top spot for tomorrow’s semi-final.

Cracking a time of 24.41, Zhang overtook her own previous career-quickest of 24.83 from 2017. That was produced at that year’s National Games. As such, she hacked .42 off of that previous result to become China’s 2nd fastest woman of all-time.

Zhang’s 24.41 checks her in just behind China’s national record-holding Liu Xiang who owns the fastest time ever for her nation in 24.03 from the 2020 FINA Champions Series.

Top 5 Chinese Women’s LCM 50 Freestyle Performers All Time

  1. Liu Xiang, 24.03 2020
  2. Zhang Yufei, 24.41 2021
  3. Le Jingyi, 24.51 1994
  4. Chen Xinyi, 24.53 2016
  5. Zhu Menghui, 24.65 2017

On the season, Zhang falls just outside the top 10 performers worldwide, with the semi-finals and final yet to go.

The men’s 50m free also saw a head-turning performance, with Yu Hexin ripping a big-time 21.83 in the heats of that event.

Beating the field by well over half a second, Yu’s time checks in as the 2nd best of his career, sitting only .04 shy of his 21.79 national record. He set that slightly faster mark just last September at China National Championships and both that performance and tonight’s represent his only ventures under the 22-second barrier.

With his 21.83 performance here, Yu joins the ever-growing list of Olympic contenders, now slotted as the 10th fastest man in the world, tying American Caeleb Dressel.

2020-2021 LCM Men 50 Free

2Vlad
Morozov
RUS21.4104/09
3Ben
Proud
GBR21.4204/17
4Michael
Andrew
USA21.4806/20
5Florent
Manaudou
FRA21.5307/31
6Bruno
Fratus
BRA21.5708/01
7Thom
de Boer
NED21.5807/03
8Kristian
Gkolomeev
GRE21.6005/22
9Ari-Pekka
Likkonen
FIN21.6105/23
10Ryan
Held
USA21.6204/10
View Top 26»

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Khachaturian
3 years ago

21.6 final?

SWIMMING IS THE BEST
Reply to  Khachaturian
3 years ago

Hopefully we see Yu Hexin do it, 21.6 would break the Asian record.

About Retta Race

Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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