Hangzhou, China, September 29, 2023: A resurgent and revitalised Ye Shiwen is setting her sights on taking one more crack at the Olympic Games as the newly-crowned Asian Games women’s 200 metres breaststroke champion celebrated her return to the top step of the podium in almost a decade.
The 27-year-old Ye cruised to victory on Thursday to add the breaststroke gold to the silver she won in the 200m Individual Medley on Monday, with results in front of her hometown crowd in Hangzhou reinvigorating the Chinese swimmer with less than a year to go to Paris.
“I’d really like to improve my strengths and I’d like to be selected for the Paris Olympics,” Ye said, after winning her first Asian Games gold medal in nine years. “There are certain events in my mind. I’m wondering about the 400 medley, but we’ll see.”
While Ye’s latest Asian Games gold medal – her sixth – came in the breaststroke, it was in the medley events that she established herself as one of the world’s finest.
Her career has gone through significant ups and downs since making her championship debut at the Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010 as a 14 year old, where she won gold in both the 200m and 400m IM.
She went on to win the world title a year later before making major waves in London at the 2012 Olympic Games, breaking the world record to win the 400 IM and setting a new Olympic Games record to also claim the 200 IM title.
Ye’s success continued into the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, where she successfully defended her IM titles, setting an Asian Games record in the 400 which still stands, and also added gold in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay.
But from there she entered into a fallow period, finishing eighth at the 2016 Olympics in the 200 IM before failing to be selected for China’s team for the Tokyo Games in 2021.
Ye has undergone a resurgence in 2023, reaching the final of the 200 IM at the world championships in Fukuoka in July before picking up her first major title in nine years on Thursday in Hangzhou.
“There was a low period, for a very long time actually I was at a loss,” Ye said of her years out of the spotlight. “I was wondering if I should give up but it seems I have not come to the end yet.
“This is not the right time to give up otherwise I would not overcome any difficulty in my life so I didn’t give up.”
After achieving so much in her teenage years, Ye believes growing older has given her a new perspective on herself and her sport.
“Compared to when I was younger, I maybe recover a little bit slower but I have more experience and in terms of mentality I think I’m able to adjust myself before the event,” said Ye.
“At the Guangzhou Asian Games I was still perhaps developing myself, I was still quite young. I hadn’t realised the Olympic gold medal dream so I was just racing ahead with no fear.
“For the second Asian Games, the one in Incheon, I had some medals in my pocket and I was wondering how to adjust, for example the tempo for the 400 medley and finding different ways to swim maybe backstroke.
“But these Asian Games in Hangzhou, in terms of mentality, I think I’m at my best. I have the passion, I have the motivation to support me. I’m not going to be tied up or kidnapped by the result. So I’ve been looking forward to the Asian Games.”