Night of Records in Nagoya: Zhang Zhanshuo's Asian-Record 200m Freestyle and Xu Jiayu's 15th Gold
Nineteen-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo won the Asian Games men's 200m freestyle in Asian-record time on Wednesday, on a night when veteran backstroker Xu Jiayu became the most decorated Chinese athlete in the Games' history and 13-year-old Yu Zidi collected a third gold.
The broadcast graphic did the announcing: 1:43.49 — an Asian record — under the words "WINNER ZHANG Zhanshuo". In Wednesday's men's 200m freestyle final at the Aichi–Nagoya Asian Games, China's 19-year-old touched the wall first, adding an individual crown to the most dramatic moment China has had at these Games: Monday's 4x200m freestyle relay.
There, China handed Zhang the anchor leg 0.71 seconds behind Japan, after three legs had left the team nearly four seconds adrift. He ran Japan down over the final fifty meters and touched at 7:00.17 — another Asian record, and China's first title in the event since the 2010 Guangzhou Games — with a 1:42.92 split that widely shared recaps called the fastest relay leg ever swum. Pan Zhanle, the Olympic 100m champion, had set up the chase on the third leg. The relay anchored a golden night in Nagoya that we covered earlier this week.
Zhang's race was not even Wednesday's record. In the mixed 4x100m medley relay, Xu Jiayu, Dong Zhihao, Zhang Yufei and Yu Yiting won in 3:40.38, giving the backstroker a 15th career Asian Games gold across four editions of the meet — one more than marksman Wang Yifu managed, and more than any Chinese athlete has ever collected at the Games. Xu accepted the milestone with an inventory of Chinese swimming's other ledgers: "Wang Shun holds the most National Games golds; Zhang Yufei has the most Olympic medals," he said. "It's an honor that I now have the most Asian Games golds for Chinese swimming."
The evening closed with the program's future. Yu Zidi, who does not turn 14 until the end of the year, won the women's 400m individual medley in 4:28.56, a Games record and her third gold of the meet — hours after the Ministry of Education had been asked at its morning press conference about the two she had already banked, with an official calling what the 13-year-old is doing "a truly remarkable thing." We covered her record-breaking breakthrough earlier this week.
Weibo celebrated in kind: CCTV News' post of Zhang's finish passed 7,000 likes within hours, and the companion hashtag — 张展硕恐怖如斯, roughly "Zhang Zhanshuo, terrifyingly good" — trended alongside his name. "The strength is terrifying," one fan wrote, "but nobody was surprised."
Asked about his own milestone, Xu pointed past himself, to the 19-year-old anchor: "Zhanshuo will probably pass me soon."