2021 CHINA NATIONAL GAMES
- Sunday, September 19th – Saturday, September 25th (swimming)
- Xi’an Olympic Sports Center Swimming and Diving Hall, Shaanxi, China
- LCM (50m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Recap #1
- Entries/Results
The 2021 China National Games rolled on this week, with several Olympians diving into the Xi’an Olympic Sports Center Swimming and Diving Hall.
Among them was Asian record holder Yan Zibei who had put his own Chinese national standard on notice with his semi-final swim of 58.87. That time was already faster than the 58.99 he put up at the Tokyo Olympic Games to tie American Andrew Wilson for 6th place.
Despite hitting a sub-59 here, however, Yan ultimately touched in a time of 59.03 when it came time for the final. That was still enough to easily defeat the field, which included Sun Jiajun and Qin Haiyang who finished with the silver and bronze in marks of 59.83 and 1:00.25, respectively.
The women’s 100m breast saw a meet record bit the dust big-time by 22-year-old Yu Jingyao. After posting a head-turning 1:06.02 in the semi-final, the 2018 Asian Games 200m breast silver medalist pumped out a super quick mark of 1:05.63 to take the gold at these Games. While Yu didn’t swim at the Tokyo Olympic Games where China entered only one swimmer in the women’s 100 breaststroke, her time from this week would have placed her 4th in an event where China had no finalists.
That time was enough to hold off runner-up Tang Qianting, who led the field after the semi-finals and did swim the event at the Olympics. Tang hit 1:06.02 in that earlier round but settled for runner-up in the final with a result of 1:05.82.
Multi-Olympic medalist at this summer’s Olympic Games, Zhang Yufei, made some noise in the women’s 100m fly, clocking a speedy time of 56.24. That not only beat the field by nearly 2 1/2 seconds, but it sits just outside the list of the top 10 performances ever produced by Chinese female swimmers.
Zhang owns a lifetime best of 55.62 and was just off that in 55.64 for silver in Tokyo.
Additional notable swims thus far came in the form of Tang Muhan snagging women’s 400m free gold while Wang Shun got it done in the men’s 200m free in a mark of 1:46.14.
Xu Jiayu was also in action in the men’s 100m back, clocking 53.26 to top the podium. Xu was the 2019 world champion in this 1back event but missed the podium in Tokyo, placing 5th in 52.51
Tang Muhan 1.54.2, home in 27.9 (!!) – I guess her 4×2 split in Tokyo was no fluke…
They might improve their 4×200 WR next year in Fukuoka.
Dang… has any woman ever split 27 other then the first 50?
I have it in my head that Sjostrom once came back in 27s during a mare nostrum series race against Hosszu, 7-8 years ago, but that was for a 1.57, not a 1.54.