2023 CHINESE SPRING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Sunday, March 19th – Friday, March 24th
- Qingdao, China
- LCM (50m)
- Day 1 Recap
- Results via Asian Media
The 2023 Chinese Spring Championships continued with more swift performances taking place on both the men’s and women’s sides.
The men’s 100m breaststroke saw its top 3 finishers all get under the minute mark, led by 23-year-old Qin Haiyang. Qin punched a time of 58.66 to get to the wall first, coming within .03 of the Chinese national and Asian continental record. The record stands at the 58.63 Yan Zibei put on the books at the 2019 World Championships.
Behind Qin was Sun Jiajun who posted a silver medal-worthy result of 59.00 while Yan was the 3rd place finisher in a time of 59.46. All 3 dipped under the World Aquatics ‘A’ cut of 59.75 needed for this summer’s World Championships.
You can view the men’s 1breast below.
Chinese Spring Championships
Men's 100 breast
Qin Haiyang 58.66 pic.twitter.com/bKoMOcHHDc— Chinese Swimming News and Results (@CHNswim_fan) March 21, 2023
Qin and Sun now rank as the #1 and #3 swimmers in the world this season.
2022-2023 LCM Men 100 Breast
Haiyang
57.69
| 2 | Nic Fink | USA | 58.36 | 06/30 |
| 3 | Ilya Shymanovich | BLR | 58.41 | 04/08 |
| 4 | Arno Kamminga | NED | 58.71 | 07/23 |
| 5 | Nicolò Martinenghi | ITA | 58.72 | 07/24 |
2018 Asian Games champion Liu Yaxin grabbed the gold in the women’s 200m backstroke, logging a swift time of 2:07.35. Her performance represents a new lifetime best for the 23-year-old Olympian. Entering this meet her PB rested at the 2:07.56 she produced in the semi-final of the event at the 2016 Olympic Games.
Peng Xuwei scored a mark of 2:08.33 as the runner-up while Wang Xinyi logged a time of 2:11.51 to round out the top 3. The World Aquatics ‘A’ cut is 2:11.08 which means both Liu and Peng got under the QT.
Liu now checks in as the 4th quickest swimmer in the world this season.
2022-2023 LCM Women 200 Back
McKeown
WR 2:03.14
| 2 | Regan SMITH | USA | 2:03.80 | 06/28 |
| 3 | Rhyan White | USA | 2:05.77 | 06/28 |
| 4 | Claire Curzan | USA | 2:06.35 | 06/28 |
| 5 | Kennedy Noble | USA | 2:06.54 | 06/28 |
Yesterday Wang Shun reaped 2 golds, winning the men’s 100m back and 200m IM. The 29-year-old Olympic medalist claimed a third title as he topped the men’s 400m IM field on day two.
Wang registered an effort of 4:14.23 to beat the field by over 6 seconds. The next closest competitor was Chen Nuo who touched in 4:20.79 while Tao Guannan was a hair behind in 4:20.99 as the bronze medalist.
Although Wang’s time was off his lifetime best and national record of 4:09.10, his result easily cleared the time standard of 4:17.48 needed for Fukuoka.
Finally, in the women’s 100m free, Cheng Yujie hit the sole result under the 54-second barrier. Cheng posted a winning time of 53.85 as the clear winner in the race, with Ai Yanhan and Yu Yiting also finding themselves on the podium. Ai posted 54.47 for silver while Yu touched in 54.59 for bronze.
54.25 is the World Aquatics ‘A’ cut for Fukuoka, which means Cheng got the job done with her 53.85, a time within half a second of her lifetime best of 53.36 from the 2022 World Championships. That mark was clocked in the semi-final there in Budapest with Cheng ultimately placing 5th in 53.58.
After a rough year last year (and not an overly successful Olympics in Tokyo with a few key exceptions) China is really rebounding. They have a lot of very solid times already this year. Wouldn’t surprise me if they have a really good meet in Fukuoka.
China is focusing on the Asian Games at home in Hangzhou, not the WCs.
Agreed on Fukuoka, but I do think they had a pretty darn successful Olympics. Objectively more successful than 2016, including a relay gold which I don’t think has happened in a long time (ever?).
first at the olympics, though they have won a few relays at wc level
china had more hits than misses in tokyo. the 3 gold medals are obviously very good and li bingjie’s 400 met expectations. zhang was only 0.02 off her pb in the 100 and it took the third fastest performance ever to beat her. even if their mixed relay all matched their all-time fastest splits, they still would’ve lost by 0.24. xu has only been faster than murphy’s bronze medal time twice (neither were in a major final or in 2021) so a 100 back medal wasn’t a given. the only real disappointments were yang and wang missing the podium in the 200 and 1500 free respectively, after going faster earlier in the year
And a gigantic performance by Wang Shun to claim gold, which I don’t think anyone outside of China saw coming.
We also could have gotten silver if we put in our best lineup in the W 4×100 FR.
Men’s 100 breast is going to be very open this year!
Qin Haiyang is finally returning to form after his previous team, the PLA (army), disbanded. He is now training with Shanghai. Hopefully he can break his personal bests in Fukuoka/Hangzhou:
100 BR: 58.66
200 BR: 2:07.35
200 IM: 1:56.79
it is always nice to see someone finally break away from a plateau
If I am not mistaken he is more a 200m person and was former WJR holder in both 200m medley and breaststroke.
That Qin Haiyang time is both seriously quick and also out of nowhere. According to FINA website his previous PB was nearly a second slower at 59:57. 58:66 would have only been 0.01 off the podium at last years World’s and comfortably got 4th in Tokyo. Becoming very difficult to predict the mens 100m breast this years World’s!