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
Day two of the 19th Asian Games continued the momentum from day one, with multiple meet records going down on both the men’s and women’s sides.
In this intense competition, no record is safe and we still have four days of high-octane action left on the agenda.
Bucking the trend of China having won every gold through day one as well as the first two events of day two of the 2023 Asian Games, 21-year-old Ji Yuchan of Korea fired off a new lifetime best to top the men’s 50m free podium.
Ji got to the wall in a swift time of 21.72, a new Games Record. The previous mark stood at the 21.94 China’s Ning Zetao established at the 2014 Asian Games.
As for Ji, his outing overtook his own previous Korean national record of 21.84 he produced just this morning in the heats of the event. That performance bested the 22.16 Yang Jae-hoon put on the books in 2020, making Ji the first-ever man from his nation to get under the 22-second threshold.
Women’s 200 Free
After hitting an other-worldly split of 51.92 on Hong Kong’s women’s 4x100m freestyle relay, 25-year-old Siobhan Haughey turned heads big-time in the individual 200m free event.
Haughey touched in a time of 1:54.12 to handily defeat the field, nearly beating the pack by 2 solid seconds en route to gold.
Haughey opened in 55.68 and closed in 58.44 to come within striking distance of her own Asian Record of 1:53.92 she produced for silver at the 2020 Olympic Games.
The former University of Michigan Wolverine’s 1:54.12 outing did overtake the previous Games Record of 1:56.65 China’s Zhu Qianwei registered over a decade ago at the 2010 Asian Games.
Haughey placed 4th in this event at this year’s World Championships, turning in a time of 1:53.96 in Fukuoka.
Men’s 100 Breast
Newly-minted 200m breaststroke World Record holder Qin Haiyang ripped a winning time of 57.76 to take the men’s 100m breast tonight in Hangzhou.
Qin split 26.69/31.07, just missing his best-ever result of 57.69 which rendered the 24-year-old world champion in Fukuoka this year.
China went 1-2 in the 1breast here, with teammate Yan Zibei clocking 59.09 as the runner-up.
The former Games Record stood at the 58.35 Qin scored in the heats and, prior to that, stood at the 58.86 Japan’s Yasuhiro Koseki put up in 2018. That means Qin hacked over a second off of the previous Games standard en route to putting his stamp on this event with a shiny gold medal.
This is a drastic improvement from what Qin registered at the last edition of the Asian Games. There in Jakarta in 2018, Qin settled for 5th place, posting just a 1:00.24 while Yan took silver in 59.31.
Women’s 200 IM
Yu Yiting made her presence known in the women’s 200m IM event, crushing a winning effort of 2:07.75. She represented the sole athlete of the final to dip under the 2:10 threshold, dominating the field on her way to the top of the podium.
In doing so, 18-year-old Yu established a new Games Record, surpassing the 2:08.34 Korea’s Kim Seoyeong clocked for gold in Jakarta. This time around, Kim placed 3rd in 2:10.36 while silver went to Olympic champion Ye Shiwen in 2:10.34.
Yu’s time would have snagged silver at this year’s World Championships, beating out American Alex Walsh’s outing of 2:07.97 which finished behind winner Kate Douglas, also of the United States, who posted 2:07.17.
In fact, Yu now becomes the 10th-fastest performance in history in this event, with her time wiping out her own previous best of 2:08.34.
Of note, Olympic champion Yui Ohashi of Japan was rendered well off the podium, hitting 2:15.01 for 6th while 16-year-old Mio Narita finished 4th in 2:10.76.
Ahead of the 19th Asian Games, South Korea made no qualms about its goal of earning a potential first-ever gold in the men’s 4x200m free relay.
Entering Hangzhou, the best men’s 4x200m freestyle relay result achieved by the nation at an Asian Games was represented by a silver medal captured in 1994.
However, the quartet of Yang Jaehoon, Lee Hojoon, Kim Woomin and Hwang Sunwoo roared to the wall tonight to top the podium, producing a new Asian Record in the process.
Korea touched in a collective time of 7:01.73 to beat out runners-up China who settled for silver in 7:03.40 while Japan bagged bronze in 7:06.29.
En route to gold, Korea knocked 3 seconds off of his previous national standard and about half a second off of the longstanding Asian Record of 7:02.26 Japan put on the books at the 2009 World Championships.
If you are wondering why Qin went out so fast in the first 50m he has mentioned in interview that he will be gunning for 50m WR on the last day of the meet.
Does anybody know why USASwimming.org shows Ngoc Que Do #5 performer of all time in W200FR with the result 1:53.65
It makes her the best Asian swimmer ever in this event but not Haughey.
There are some errors in those lists, but they’re very good about updating them when pointed out. I’ll alert them.
Is Siobhan Haughey from Hong Kong or Singapore? I seem to recall reading she was from Singapore. And does Hong Kong have a separate team from China?
Hong Kong and yes
Wait does Puerto Rico have a separate team from USA?
That’s practically the same question
Yes
Very nice