China has finally announced its roster for the upcoming FINA World Championships, headed by Olympic gold medalists Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen.
Sun should find himself squarely in the center of the spotlight when the meet kicks off next month in Kazan, Russia, for a number of reasons.
Sun’s been mired in controversy the past few seasons since his explosive, world record-setting performance at the 2012 London Olympics. 2013 saw the distance man suspended by his local federation after a car accident in which he was driving without a license.
2014 seemed like a return to normalcy for the Chinese swimmer, until word got out that he had failed a drug test in May, served a short, 3-month suspension over the summer and returned to action at the 2014 Asian Games. The failed test did not surface until well after Sun had won a pair of golds at the Asian Games.
And earlier this year, Sun’s doctor (suspended at the same time as Sun) had his suspension extended for treating Sun at the Asian Games, a violation of his punishment.
On the flip side, Sun is notable for purely in-the-pool reasons, too. The 23-year-old has become one of the meet’s foremost multi-medal threats based on a large number of last-minute absences in his events.
Sun was already among the favorites to defend his world titles in the 400, 800 and 1500 frees, and suddenly became a major contender in the 200 as well with defending champ Yannick Agnel bowing out for France, Korean Olympic silver medalist Park Tae-hwan suspended for doping and Asian Games champ Kosuke Hagino out with a broken elbow.
Ye, meanwhile, was one of the stars of the London Olympics with a stunning world record win in the 400 IM, obliterating a tough field at the age of 16. Ye will have her hands full in both IMs with Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu leading the world rankings, but Ye’s closing speed in that London 400 IM has become the stuff of legend within the sport.
China will field one of the largest teams at the World Championships. They finished 2nd overall in gold medals at both the 2013 World Championships and the 2012 Olympic Games, trailing only the United States.
Notably absent from the roster are Liu Zige, 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the 200 fly, and 2013 50 back world champ Zhao Jing.
The full rosters are below. You can find them in their original Chinese in this Jingji sports piece.
Men (25):
Yun Hao,
Jianbin He,
Tianqi He,
Yixuan Hu,
Chaosheng Huang,
Guangyuan Li,
Xiang Li,
Yunqi Li,
Zhuhao Li,
Yongqin Lin,
Feilian Mao,
Zetao Ning,
Keyuan Shang,
Weijia Shi,
Yang Shi,
Yang Sun,
Kecheng Wang,
Pudong Wang,
Shun Wang,
Jiayu Xu,
Qiheng Xu,
Zhixian Yang,
Hexin Yu,
Jie Zhang
Qibin Zhang
Women (26):
Yanhan Ai,
Yue Cao,
Jie Chen,
Xinyi Chen,
Yi Fang,
Yuanhui Fu,
Junjun Guo,
Yun He,
Xiang Liu,
Yaxin Liu,
Ying Lu,
Yuhan Qiu,
Yiwen Shao,
Duo Shen,
Jinglin Shi,
Meichen Sun,
Ran Suo,
Yuting Tang,
Guoyue Wang,
Shiwen Ye,
Xinyu Zhang,
Yufei Zhang,
Yuhan Zhang,
Min Zhou,
Yilin Zhou
Hui Zhumeng
you can pull up the 2014 Asian game results in Wikipedia for an idea of how they are swimming last summer. Medley relay projection? Seems competitive there.
don’t forget their top male sprinter Zetao Nang was caught doping in 2011. He was only 18 at the time so my guess is he ddint decide to dope on his own but coaches/trainers/doctors made the decision for him
How about Jiao Liuyang, 2012 Olympic Champion in 200m butterfly? Where is she now?
After 10 seconds of investigation here are some fresh news.
The 2011 word champion and 2012 olympic champion has been suffering from serious stomach ailments and has not been training consistently for the past few months.
She had been afflicted with viral gastritis, an inflammation of the stomach lining.
She was fearful of taking medicine to treat the illness, in case the medications contained substances banned by WADA.
She might consider retirement, as the illness has caused a major setback in her training, so much that preparation for a defense of her 200 fly title in Rio might be compromised.
Her illness was the reason of her absence at Chinese nationals this past spring.
Article in… Read more »
To the Chinese swim fans who are present on swimswam, I ask that question very seriously.
Apart from national championships, are there other meets there, common in season meets, like Grand Prix meets in USA? Or swimmers only train? 😆
And if all these Chinese swimmers from the list above swim at different meets, why nothing is ever reported? We don’t know anything here. Perhaps swimswam should have a permanent correspondent there. 🙂
I would like to have some recent performances to evaluate the form of the best Chinese swimmers before making predictions. It would be easier. But we don’t anything.
we don’t know anything
Ok, let me try this.
The answer is a Yes, and No. There are many but no special point talking about.
National Olympic Swim Trials ( quadrennial, and usually held with the Nationals), National Spring/Winter Swimming Champions ( annually) , National Swimming Marathon Champions ( annually), National Youth Swimming champions ( annually), National Children’s Champions ( annually), National Champions for the Disabled ( quadrennial) , …, as well as many multi-sport events.
These relatively small competitions attract less public attention than you think. Mostly because those are events for the young talented selection, and elite swimmers who has made a fame won’t join the line except from the National Champs. It seems like a general rule. Schedules of those… Read more »
Thanks. But I don’t know if I’ve well understood.
You tell me that the only meets the swimmers listed above attend in China in a year like 2015 are spring and winter nationals?
No training meets? No in season meets like in all other nations?
Training? Training? Training?
Imagine if Katinka Hosszu was Chinese. She would be totally depressed with such a shedule. 🙂
It marvels me that my answer surprised you.
Yes, training takes up most of their time. What’s so strange about that? Training method of participating competition instead of training is rarely practical for the swimmers in China. Generally they are not physically strong as the westerners, neither technically advantaged as the Japanese. In order to remedy these defects, they have to train again and again.
Again, the only domestic event they, here by refers to not all the attendees listed above but all the top swimmers you might get an idea of, attend in is the National Swimming Championships.
No training meets, if I am thinking right about what you mean. No in season meets like in… Read more »
bobo – I don’t believe that we are anymore, but at one point, SwimSwam was actually blocked in China, and it only ranks 72nd on the list of “most swim traffic all time,” not far behind Sri Lanka.
But…maybe there’s an opportunity there. 🙂
You have been blocked in China?
😆 😆 😆 😆
Probably because some comments about Ye Shiwen were not very nice in 2012..
It must be enough to be blocked.
Violation of the national prestige in that specific case.
There is indeed some connection problem to SwimSwam from China (even now, I heard they can connect to the website but not any particular article).
I think it’s collateral damage due to technical issues rather than materials-related reasons. For comparison, SwimVortex is well known for its rather strong (to some extent personal) opinion against Chinese swimming. But it’s readily accessible in China.
I wish there is something SwimSwam can do to resolve the problem. I know quite a few Chinese fans would be really excited to access this site.
As to this question, yeah there are too few meets for Chinese swimmers. I think many swimmers and coaches hold the same opinion, so hope there could be some change in the future.
Every year, there would be only three meets that many of the national team members attend: the Spring national (most important one), the Fall national and the Aus BHP super-series in January. These days they also send quite a few people to the short-course meets.
Person I am interested in getting a look at is Li Zhuhao, already gone 51.8 in the 100 fly and is only 16,
I think the Sun has set….
we will see
Yeah but how many home runs can he hit without the juice?
A. Not many
Some things I’m waiting to see:
Can Sun Yang return to form?
Can Zetao Ning replicate what he did at the Asian games?
How good will Xu Jiayu be?
Can Ye Shiwen rebound from her 2013 Worlds failure? She has a pretty good meet at the Asian Games last year so I’m looking forward to big things.
Ye has a tiny broken bone in her right ankle that prevented her from land training since some time last year. She is considering surgery after the Worlds. She said her goals would be to medal in both events.