Hangzhou, China, September 28, 2023: Zhang Yufei continued her domination of the Hangzhou Asian Games on Thursday as the Chinese sensation collected her fifth gold medal of the swimming events with victory over Hong Kong China’s Siobhan Haughey in the women’s 50m freestyle.
Zhang, winner of the 100 and 200 butterfly as well as the 4 x 100 women’s freestyle relay and mixed medley relay, touched in an Asian Games record 24.26 seconds to pip the fast-finishing Haughey by eight-hundredths of a second to deliver China’s 20th gold medal in the pool. Cheng Yujie was third.
Hometown swimmer Ye Shiwen added to China’s golden haul in the women’s 200m breaststroke, the 27-year-old winning her first Asian Games title since claiming the 200m and 400m Individual Medley double in Incheon in 2014.
Ye, silver medallist in the 200m Individual Medley on Monday, left the opposition well adrift, winning in 2 minutes 23.84 seconds with Republic of Korea’s Kwon Se-hyun in second and Runa Imai of Japan in third.
“I’m very excited, this is the very first time that I feel very easy,” said Ye. “I unleashed all the power of the last few years, in my home town and in my home Games I have won a gold medal and I’m very excited.”
Qin Haiyang added the men’s 200m breaststroke title to his 100m gold as the world record holder eclipsed the rest of the field to finish in an Asian Games record of 2:07.03, 1.64 seconds ahead of team mate Dong Zhihao and a further 1.24 in front of Japan’s Ippei Watanabe.
“I was hoping to go under 2:07,” said Qin, who will look to complete a clean sweep of breaststroke titles in the 50m on Friday. “I wasn’t far off, but I guess this means I still relaxed a little.”
China set a new Asian record to win the men’s 4 x 100m freestyle relay with Pan Zhanle leading the quartet to a time of 3:10.88 to finish well ahead of silver medallists Republic of Korea and third place finishers Japan.
And the host nation claimed their 24th gold – and 49th medal in total in the pool – in the women’s 4 x 200m freestyle relay, finishing in 7:49.34 ahead of Japan and Republic of Korea.
The Koreans moved into second on the swimming medals table as they picked up their fourth and fifth titles to leave the Japanese in third with three golds.
Baek In-chul timed his finish to perfection to win the men’s 50m butterfly ahead of Singaporean Teong Tzen Wei with Kazakhstan’s Adilbek Mussin collecting his second bronze medal of the Games after finishing third in the 100m.
“I was in the water yet feeling like I was flying,” said Baek, whose time of 23.29 seconds was a new Asian Games record. “I wasn’t feeling 100 per cent during the qualifiers but I felt a lot better in the final. Still, I made some small mistakes. I could have performed better.”
Kim Woo-min won Republic of Korea’s second gold of the session in the men’s 800m freestyle with a commanding performance from the start to set a new Asian Games record of 7:46:03, almost four seconds clear of China’s Fei Liwei. Nguyen Huy Hoang from Vietnam took bronze.