Yu Zidi: fearless swimming prodigy, 13, with Olympics in her sights

The 13-year-old college woman with a pixie hair reduce surprised the sporting world final yr with a sequence of eye-popping instances.

At the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore she helped China attain the 4x200m girls’s freestyle relay ultimate.

She didn’t swim within the ultimate however China got here third, incomes Yu a historic bronze for swimming within the heats.

Yu simply missed out on medals within the 200m and 400m particular person medley occasions and the 200m butterfly, coming fourth in all three races.

In November at China’s National Games, having simply turned 13, she clocked a blistering 2:07.41 within the girls’s 200m medley for what was then an Asian report.

While coaching with the China group in Beijing, she informed native media this month she was “excited” for her Asian Games debut.

“Train well, don’t slack off. Demonstrate the level of your training and work hard to break past yourself,” she mentioned, in accordance with state information company Xinhua.

The Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan open on September 19.

Pressure ‘like a stone’

A coach, Ha Sinan, as soon as described Yu with a Chinese saying that interprets as “a newborn calf fearless of tigers”.

But {the teenager} has spoken of struggling to take care of the heavy load positioned on her.

Yu grew up within the metropolis of Baoding, about 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of Beijing.

She began swimming aged six and since then has juggled schoolwork with coaching.

“Being in class all day and still having to train was really tiring,” she mentioned in January.

“Sometimes I was so tired I could fall asleep even while eating,” she mentioned at an occasion celebrating Hebei province’s National Games wins.

Yu mentioned she “never considered quitting” and at all times dreamed of being a nationwide champion.

But in the course of the tune-up to final yr’s National Games she mentioned the strain of eager to win the 400m medley practically grew to become an excessive amount of.

“It was like a big stone that weighed on me and made it hard to breathe,” she mentioned.

Yu ultimately informed her coach she wished to do something apart from prepare.

Her coach informed her to persevere and “believe in yourself”, she mentioned.

Yu went on to win 4 medals on the National Games.

Some within the swimming world have questioned the psychological and bodily influence of high-level coaching and competing on Yu at such a younger age.

Under World Aquatics guidelines, the minimal age for worldwide championships is 14 however exceptions might be made for youthful swimmers if — like Yu — they’re quick sufficient.

Olympic goals

It appears sure that Yu will compete on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, when she can be 15, and on present trajectory can be a serious medal risk.

She is conscious that her success for somebody so younger has made worldwide headlines.

But she is aware of onerous work outweighs innate expertise.

In June she gained the ladies’s 400m medley in 4:30.79 at China’s nationwide championships, a time which might simply have earned her silver on the Paris Games in 2024.

“Although talent determines where you start, going further and standing taller is dependent on perseverance and effort day after day,” Yu mentioned on the January occasion.

“There is still a long road ahead,” she added.

“I will keep holding fast to my original dream, drawing strength from my team, to stand on the Olympic podium.”

© 2026 AFP