2018 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, December 11th – Sunday, December 16th
- Hangzhou, China
- Tennis Centre, Hangzhou Olympic & International Expo Center
- SCM (25m)
- Prelims: 9:30 am local, 8:30 pm ET / Finals: 7:00 pm* local, 6:00* am ET
- *The final night of finals will be one hour earlier, starting at 6:00 pm local and 5:00 am ET
- Live Results (Omega)
21-year-old Ji Xinjie broke his Chinese Record in the men’s 200 free final at the Short Course World Championships, clocking a time of 1:42.31 to break his old mark of 1:42.49 set at the Beijing stop of the World Cup last year.
In a field full of aggressive starters, Ji was the most conservative opening up, turning at the 50 (24.02) and 100m (50.04) walls in 8th place. He moved to up to 7th at the 150, and then stormed home with the fastest closing split in the field (25.82) to ultimately place 4th.
American Blake Pieroni went out for it from the gun and managed to hold on down the stretch, winning gold in 1:41.49 just ahead of Lithuanian Danas Rapsys (1:41.78). Ji ended up just .03 behind bronze medalist Alexander Graham (1:42.28) of Australia.
Compared to his previous record, Ji split the race much differently. He was significantly faster on the front-end, specifically the second 50, during his swim last year. Check out the splits below:
| Ji, 2017 Beijing World Cup | Ji, 2018 SC Worlds |
| 23.87 | 24.02 |
| 25.66 (49.53) | 26.02 (50.04) |
| 26.48 (1:16.01) | 26.45 (1:16.49) |
| 26.48 (1:42.49) | 25.82 (1:42.31) |
| 1:42.49 | 1:42.31 |