HANGZHOU – Chinese swimmers are the undisputed pool bullies at these Asian Games, after it amassed a record 28 golds from 41 events at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Park Aquatics Centre, surpassing Japan’s previous high of 25 at Bangkok 1978.
Panda headband-wearing Zhang Yufei and Qin Haiyang helped them match and cross that mark. The former won the 50m butterfly in a Games record time of 25.10 seconds for her sixth gold here while Qin followed suit with victory in the 50m breaststroke for his fifth gold.
Compatriot Li Bingjie took out the women’s 800m freestyle before Xu Jiayu added the men’s 200m backstroke for his 11th gold in three Asiads.
In the night’s last three races, South Korea’s Kim Woo-min won the men’s 400m free while Japan’s Tomoru Honda seized the men’s 200m fly in a Games record 1min 53.15sec, before his compatriots clinched the women’s 4x100m medley relay.
Besides home-ground familiarity and the vociferous support of the 12,000-strong partisan crowd, China’s success can be attributed to a wide pool of talent as they swept six out of seven relay golds and had 14 one-two finishes in the individual events.
Wang Shun, 29, was 0.62sec away from the men’s 200m free world record, while Xu, 28, also won five golds here. Zhang, 25, and Qin, 24, are in their peak years.
Pan Zhanle, 19, was 0.11sec away from the men’s 100m free world record, while fellow teenagers Tang Qianting, Wang Letian and Yu Yiting proved a strong pipeline and succession plan is in place.
Sports science also played a part. At their Shanghai base, mirrors are installed on the pool floor to allow swimmers to observe their movement, while underwater cameras and artificial intelligence are incorporated to help coaches analyse and make adjustments to achieve marginal gains.
Effort was made to keep dryland and pool training sessions interesting, while there was a strong focus on core strength, periodisation and recovery.
China coach Cui Dengrong said: “In this fast-changing era, only by innovating our processes and mentality, can we keep up with the times and stay ahead of the curve.”
South Korea improved from one gold and six medals in 2018 to six golds – all from the men’s events – and 22 medals for their best haul since winning four golds and 13 medals at Guangzhou 2010.
Equally eye-catching was Japan’s freefall from the chart-topping 19 golds five years ago. They managed just five this time in their worst showing since going empty-handed in 1951.
Before the Games, their long-time coach Norimasa Hirai stepped down and was suspended for six months by the Japan Swimming Federation, who was accused by Shinri Shioura for disregarding requests to participate in overseas racing ahead of the July world championships.
Hong Kong, meanwhile, celebrated a golden breakthrough as Siobhan Haughey won the territory’s first Asiad swimming golds in the 100m and 200m free.
Just three other nations won medals in the pool, through Singapore’s Teong Tzen Wei (men’s 50m fly silver), Vietnam’s Nguyen Huy Hoang (men’s 400m, 800m free bronze) and Kazakhstan’s Adilbek Mussin (men’s 50m, 100m fly bronze).