China Rattles WR In Men’s Medley Relay At Asian Games; Siobhan Haughey Sets Asian 100 Free Record
The first two days of the Asian Games pool programme has seen China dominate with 11 golds among 23 medals in Hangzhou, China.
Coming into night three, only the Republic of Korea and Hong Kong had denied them a clean sweep of golds so far with the former claiming two in the men’s 50 free and 4×200 relay and Siobhan Haughey winning the 200 free in Hong Kong colours.
But night three proved to be another thrilling evening of racing that included two Asian records with the men’s medley relay coming within touching distance of the world record and Japan’s first gold of the 2022 Asian Games in the pool.
Here is how it unfolded at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Aquatic Sports Arena.
Women’s 100m Freestyle
Haughey had already claimed 200 gold in an Asian Games record of 1:54.12 on Monday as well as bronze in the 50m breaststroke and 4×100 free relay in which she split 51.92.
The 25-year-old was never really challenged: out in 25.16 and back in 27.01 to touch in 52.17 as she sliced 0.10secs from her own Asian standard of 52.27 en-route to silver in Tokyo.
It was 0.32secs quicker than her 52.49 that won silver at the worlds in Fukuoka where Mollie O’Callaghan claimed gold in 52.16.
Behind her came Chinese duo Yang Junxuan (53.11) and Cheng Yujie (53.91).
Men’s 400m Individual Medley
Japan hadn’t won a solitary gold coming into the third evening of the Asian Games but Tomoru Honda and Daiya Seto promised to rectify that in the long medley.
The pair booked the centre lanes in the morning prelims with both stating their aim of beating each other and the Chinese.
The duo struck out and it was Honda who led after the fly leg in 54.84 to Seto’s 56.27.
Rio 2016 bronze medallist Seto responded on the backstroke to lead at halfway in 2:00.96, 0.47 ahead of his teammate.
Come the 300m mark and he’d extended that to 1.18secs and going into the final turn he was 1.25secs ahead with a successful defence of his title in sight.
However, the pianos came crashing down and Honda moved on to Seto’s shoulder and moved beyond to stop the clock at 4:11.40.
Seto added silver to his 2IM bronze in 4:12.88 with Wang Shun – winner of the short medley – third in 4:15.12.
Women’s 200m Backstroke
Peng Xuwei led home a Chinese 1-2 in 2:07.28 with teammate Liu Yaxin clocking 2:08.70.
Lee Eunji of Korea took bronze in 2:09.75.
Men’s 1500m Freestyle
There was yet another Chinese gold medal with Fei Liwei the only man inside 15mins in 14:55.47.
Kim Woomin of Korea (15:01.07) and Japan’s Shogo Takeda (15:03.29) completed the podium.
Women’s 400m Freestyle
Li Bingjie picked up her second individual gold, adding the 400 to her 1500 title although she didn’t fulfil her aim of going inside 4mins.
The Chinese swimmer – who also took silver in the 200 – clocked a Games record 4:01.96 and completes her odyssey in the 800 as she seeks to complete the 400-800-1500 treble.
Teammate Ma Yonghui was second in 4:05.68 with Japan’s Waka Kobori third in 4:07.81.
Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay
The evening ended with a treat for the crowd in Hangzhou as China delivered a relay masterclass.
Splits:
52.05: Xu Jiayu
57.63: Qin Haiyang
50.68: Wang Changhao
46.65: Pan Zhanle
It all added up to 3:27.01 – the second-fastest 4×1 medley in history and just 0.23 behind the USA’s WR of 3:26.78 set en-route to Olympic gold in Tokyo.
The quartet also sliced almost two seconds off the Asian record of 3:29.00 they set for silver at the 2023 worlds in Fukuoka.
Korea were second in 3:32.05 with Japan taking bronze in 3:32.52.
Having reached the halfway point of the pool programme, China leads the medal table with 15 golds, 13 silvers and four bronze medals.
Korea are second (two gold, two silver and five bronze) ahead of Hong Kong (2, 1, 2) and Japan (1, 4, 9).