China’s Ye Shiwen Notches First Sub-4:40 400 IM In Two Years

2023 CHINESE WORLD TRIALS

• Sunday, December 10th – Friday, December 15th
• Jinan, China
• LCM (50m)
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap
• Results via Asian media

The final day of the 2023 Chinese Nationals/World Championships Trials saw World Record holder Qin Haiyang back in the water.

Contesting the men’s 200m breaststroke, 24-year-old Qin completed his sweep of the discipline, stopping the clock at 2:09.45.

Mark Sai Ting Adam produced a mark of 2:12.12 for silver while Song Yifei rounded out the podium in 2:13.97.

While Qin’s sub-2:10 result was a respectable performance, it’s far from the fireworks-producing swims we’ve seen so far this year from the Asian Games Champion.

In Fukuoka, Qin clocked the current World Record in a monster performance of 2:05.48. Several weeks later he nailed another head-turning time of 2:07.03 to grab gold in Hangzhou in a new Games Record mark.

Ye Shiwen, the 2012 Olympic gold medalist in the women’s 400m IM, dove in for that event this evening. The 27-year-old got to the wall in 4:38.58.

Yin Jiahe settled for silver behind Ye tonight in 4:43.61 and Mao Yihan bagged bronze in 4:44.40.

As for Ye, her time this evening checks in as her first sub-4:40 outing since her nation’s Tokyo Olympic Trials. Already here in Jinan, she scored a new lifetime best of 1:07.34 in the 100m breast as the bronze medalist.

The women’s 100m free this evening saw Cheng Yujie come within striking distance of her lifetime best en route to gold.

Cheng registered 53.57 to eke out the victory over Yang Junxuan who notched 53.64 as the runner-up. Zhang Yufei also landed on the podium in 54.01 for bronze.

While Zhang is the Chinese national record holder in this event with her PB of 52.90 from 2020, Cheng’s career-quickest rests at the 53.26 logged just earlier this year. Her time tonight fell less than a half-second off of that mark.

Additional Notes

• Wang Yutian topped the men’s 200m back podium in 1:59.15 as one of two sub-2:00 swimmers. Tao Guannan was next to the wall in 1:59.56 while Wang Gukailai notched 2:01.09 for 3rd place.
• Tang Qianting turned in a time of 2:26.12 for gold in the women’s 200m breast. That beat the field by over a second, with Zheng Muyan touching in 2:27.54 and Liu Mengyang next in line in 2:28.59 in the race.