2024 CHINESE NATIONAL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Friday, April 19th – Sunday, April 27th
- Shenzhen, China
- LCM (50m)
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
- Results
- Livestream
We entered day 3 of the 2024 Chinese National Swimming Championships, the competition which represents the last chance opportunity for the nation’s swimmers to book their tickets to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
This competition, combined with the finals of the 2023 and 2024 World Championships will determine the roster,
We reported how the swim of the night went to 20-year-old Tang Qianting with the athlete lowering her own newly-minted Asian Record from last night’s women’s 100m breast semi-finals.
Tang reaped gold in a monster performance of 1:04.39 to become the 4th-best performer in history.
19-year-old freestyle phenom Pan Zhanle was in the water to contest the final of the men’s 200m free.
The 100m free world record holder put up a semi-final time last night of 1:45.70 to stake his claim on the race He dropped just slightly in this evening’s main event, ultimately touching the wall in 1:45.68, still good enough for gold.
Pan opened in 52.20 and closed in 53.48 to get the victory narrowly over runner-up Ji Xinjie.
26-year-old Ji settled for silver in 1;45.86, within range of his best-ever 1:45.48, while Zhang Zhanshuo rounded out the podium in 1:46.28.
Additional finishers among the top 6 included: 4th – Fei Liewei, 1:46.88; 5th – Liu Wudi, 1:47.01; 6th – Niu Guangsheng, 1:47.17.
Ji, Pan and Zhang were 3 of the 4 members of the national record-setting men’s 4x200m free relay from this year’s World Championships. Along with Wang Haoyu they clocked a time of 7:01.84 to just out-touch South Korea by .10 for gold.
18-year-old Yu Yiting topped the women’s 400m IM podium, producing a winning effort of 4:39.60.
She represented the sole swimmer of the field to get under the 4:40 barrier, with Yu Zidi close behind in 4:40.97. Qu Jianing rounded out the top 3 in 4:43.11.
The World Aquatics Olympic Qualification Time rests at 4:38.53 which means the trio of performers missed the selection standard for Paris.
Two-time Olympic medalist Yang Junxuan got it done in the women’s 200m free, however, with the 22-year-old crushing a winning time of 1:54.37.
That easily cleared the OQT of 1:57.26 and tied the opening 200m Yang threw down as lead-off on the Chinese women’s gold medal-winning 4x200m free relay from Tokyo. That represented the 200m free national record for a handful of months until Tang Muhan lowered it to 1:54.26 at the 2021 National Games.
Tang settled for 4th place in tonight’s race in a mark of 1:56.85 behind silver medalist Li Bingjie who also hit the OQT with a result of 1:56.29. Bronze went to Liu Yaxin in 1:56.56.
Yang now checks in as the 4th-swiftest performer in the world this season.
2023-2024 LCM Women 200 Free
TITMUS
1:52.23 WR
| 2 | Mollie O'Callaghan | AUS | 1:52.48 | 06/12 |
| 3 | Summer MCINTOSH | CAN | 1:53.69 | 05/14 |
| 4 | Siobhan HAUGHEY | HKG | 1:54.08 | 10/21 |
| 5 | Junxuan Yang | CHN | 1:54.37 | 04/21 |
Finally, the men’s 100m back saw Olympic medalist Xu Jiayu post a strong performance of 52.39 to dominate the final.
Xu split 25.51/26.88 to earn the gold, within range of his season-best of 52.05 logged for last year’s Asian Games title. That rendered the 28-year-old the #1 swimmer in the world right now in the men’s 1back.
200m IM Olympic champion Wang Shun snared silver in 53.78, a new personal best by .02. His previous PB checked in at the 53.80 notched as lead-off in the prelims of the mixed medley relay at last year’s Asian Games.
Bronze tonight went to Wang Gukailai in 54.01.
Xu cleared the OQT of 53.74 while Wang fell painstakingly just .04 outside the standard
Semi-Finals
- Wang Xueer led the women’s 100m back semi-final with a swim of 59.45. Peng Xuwei is in the hunt, carrying a semi swim of 59.60 while Wan Letian is also in contention with her 59.77 performance.
Does China go M-F-F-M in Mixed Medley Relay seems absurd Qin may be left out but seems like a possibilty?
Definitely not like this. Team USA showed the wrong example in Tokyo
If only Qin is out of the Paris games (which is probably not gonna happen but we’ll see), then China’s best lineup is Xu-Tang-Zhang-Pan on paper (and solid silver medal favorites battling for gold too), but if Qin is out then both Zhang and Yu are too for the female butterfly leg, so they’re kinda left in a bind.
If their male Butterflier (not named Chen Juner) goes 51-low then they can try FFMM, but they might be out of the medals.
Anyhow all of this is theory because World Aquatics and WADA is clearly on the side of China right now.
China will remain their existing quartet, xu, qin, zhang and yang. They are favourite to win gold in paris based on their perfomance in asian games last year
Seems crazy that the WR holder in !00m Freestyle will not make the team.
Freestyle is the stroke with the smallest gap between men and women, while breaststroke is the stroke with the largest gap between men and women
It almost never makes sense to have a women do BR. Just look at the average gap. At the Olympics it’s nearly 7 seconds whereas other strokes are 4-5.
Always have a female free, and fly or back is optional. Never do BR unless your women rocks and you guy really sucks.
With Qin that will never make sense.
Xu Jiayu is a gold medal hopeful. Wang Shu has to focus on his principle event 200 IM now. Anyhow he is on the lineup of his team’s medley relay roster.
Wang Shun much better today – Perhaps he was just rusty yesterday, he hadn’t raced since last September. China will need him in 1.45 shape to have any hope of medalling in the 4×2. Pan is mostly definitely the joker in the 200 pack – bombing out in heats again would be as unsurprising as winning gold.
I think he decided to tactically drop the 200 free and focus on the 100 Back as both finals were on the same day. We’ll see how he does in the 200 IM
Looks like the 400IM runner up – Yu Zidi with a time of 4:40.97 is just.. 11 years old?
I think she is 12 now, but still startling – Her freestyle looked brilliant. It reminded me of the 15 year old Chinese girl who recently threw the javelin 64m – 8m further than any girl her age ever has before, a huge 14% increase on the old international age record.
We are seeing so many unbelievably good young athletes coming out of China – One can only hope they aren’t being exploited/over-trained at very young ages by people/coaches looking to benefit from their talents.
Regardless is that the fastest time ever at that age I mean that almost seems too fast to be real for a 12 year old?
I haven’t checked, but it is faster than the US *boys* 11-12 NAG, so I’d say so
at that agw there isnt much of a difference between boys and girls so its orobably possible
But there is a difference, particularly at events 400m and shorter. Boys NAG is 8s faster than girls in the US, 15s faster in Britain, 15s in Australia – and all are still slower than Yu Zidi. There isn’t as much difference as there is in adults, but there is a demonstrable difference – It is clearly possible, but as far as I can find this is unprecedented.
She will turn 12 in Oct.
In which case, she just swam 19s faster than any 11yo British boy, and 29s faster than any 11yo British girl ever has. I believe she also swam a 4.10 400fr, which would be the mixed gender 11yo intl age best by 12 seconds.