China’s 13-year-old swimming prodigy – Taipei Instances

Yu Zidi made historical past final yr aged 12 when she grew to become the youngest-ever medalist on the swimming world championships. Now a young person, she headlines China’s bid for Asian Games domination and has Olympic glory in her sights.

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

At the final yr’s World Aquatics Championships in Singapore she helped China attain the 4x200m ladies’s freestyle relay closing. She didn’t swim within the closing, 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 final yr at China’s National Games, having simply turned 13, she clocked a blistering 2:07.41 within the ladies’s 200m medley for what was then an Asian report.

While coaching with the China group in Beijing, she advised 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 stated, in line with state information company Xinhua.

The Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan open on Saturday subsequent week.

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

However, {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 150km 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 stated in January.

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

Yu stated she “never considered quitting” and all the time dreamed of being a nationwide champion.

Yet in the course of the tune-up to final yr’s National Games she stated the stress 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 stated.

Yu finally advised her coach she wished to do something apart from practice.

Her coach advised her to persevere and “believe in yourself,” she stated. Yu went on to win 4 medals on the National Games.

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

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

She is conscious that her success for somebody so younger has made worldwide headlines, however she is aware of exhausting 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.

“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,” she stated.