World Aquatics Championships: back-to-back China golds as Qin Haiyang becomes 2nd fastest in history and Zhang Yufei avenges Tokyo
- Qin’s time puts him second only to Britain’s Adam Peaty, while Zhang beats Canada’s China-born Maggie Mac Neil in a reverse of Tokyo Olympics
- Hong Kong’s Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey poised for her first individual event on Tuesday in the 200m freestyle heats
China claimed gold in consecutive races at the World Aquatics Championships on Monday evening as Qin Haiyang won the men’s 100m breaststroke and Zhang Yufei the women’s 100m butterfly.
Qin’s winning time of 57.69 seconds on day two of pool events in Fukuoka made him the second fastest in history, albeit some way off the 56.88 world record of Britain’s Adam Peaty.
“That is a pretty good time,” Qin said. “That is my best time. But I can do better. I will catch up to the world record.”
Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi, Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands and the United States’ Nic Fink were all awarded silver, each clocking 58.72.
“This is my first gold medal at the world championships,” said Zhang, who owns seven previous bronzes. “This is my happy time. I just feel wonderful and amazing.”
The two golds meant China had already eclipsed their disappointing showing in last year’s edition.
“Last year the whole team didn’t perform very well, and we worked hard and tried to be ready for these championships,” Zhang said. “We learned from last year. It was an opportunity for us. Hopefully we can get more gold medals in the next six days.”
Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey begins her first individual event on Tuesday when she swims in the 200m freestyle.
Haughey is poised to race in the heats from 9.47am Hong Kong time, then is expected to appear again in the semi-finals from 8.13pm.
Wednesday’s final could offer an opportunity for 25-year-old Haughey to win her – and indeed Hong Kong’s – first global gold in an Olympic-standard “long-course” (50m) pool.
In the short-course 25m format, she has already collected two world titles at 200m as well as one over 100m freestyle, her other favoured event.
However, she trails the world-leading swimmers on 200m long-course times this year. Ariarne Titmus, who won gold ahead of her at the Olympics, has gone 1.72 seconds faster than Haughey’s year’s best of one minute and 55.03 seconds, with Mollie O’Callaghan, Titmus’s fellow Australian, and Canada’s Summer McIntosh also over a second quicker.
Titmus was in ominous form in winning the 400m freestyle on Sunday, breaking McIntosh’s world record as she finished fully 3.35 seconds ahead of Katie Ledecky of the United States.
“I’ve put in a lot of work the past six weeks that I’ve been really happy with and took a lot away from [the Australian] trials,” Titmus said. “I swam the way I wanted to, but knew I had enough time to turn that around, and came here and tried to be fearless.”
The 100m, in which Haughey’s fastest 2023 time ranks second, only 0.02 slower than that of O’Callaghan, follows later in the week.
Hong Kong’s Stephanie Au Hoi-shun swam on Monday in the 100m backstroke, placing ninth out of 10 in her heat in 1:01.08. Lau Shiu-yue was eighth in his 100m backstroke heat in 58.21 seconds, while Lam Hoi-kiu was 10th in her 100m breaststroke heat in 1:12.46.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Agence France-Presse
