Doha, Qatar, February 18, 2024: China will enter the final day of the World Aquatics Championships – Doha 2024 on Sunday, February 18 with an impressive lead at the top of the overall medal rankings.
Heading into the last day of the swimming competition at Aspire Dome, China has won 23 gold medals, seven silver and two bronze medals for a total haul of 32 medals in the six-discipline world championships, which began on February 2.
The next best is the United States of America (8-4-8-20), Australia (5-12-5-22), Netherlands (5-3-0-8) and Italy (3-10-3-16).
China’s 23 gold medals have been won in three sports: Diving (9), artistic swimming (7) and swimming (7).
There are still eight gold medals to be won in the swimming pool on Sunday evening, when the World Aquatics Championships flag will be handed over to Singapore – host of the next world championships in 2025.
China’s seventh swimming gold medal came on Saturday night in another relay that highlighted their all-round power.
With a quartet of men’s 100m freestyle world record-holder Pan Zhanle, supported by Wang Haoyu, Li Bingjie and Yu Yiting, China raced to victory in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay in a time of 3:21.18. It was China’s third relay gold of the week.
The team of Pan (47.29), Wang (47.41), Li (53.11) and Yu (53.37) broke the Asian record to beat the Australians (3:21.78) for the gold medal.
China has thus far won the men’s 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays this week, with Pan and Wang swimming on all three of the victorious relays. Pan also took out the 100m free final on Thursday and set a new world record in the first leg of the 100m relay last Sunday.
The United States won the bronze at 3:22.28.
*In the women’s 50m breaststroke semifinals on Saturday, China’s Tang Qianting set the Asian record once again with a time of 29.80 – tied for seventh all-time in this event. Tang won the 100m breaststroke earlier in the week.
