China has equaled the almighty USA in the total gold record at a single world championships. This is absolutely insane. China is not only good at diving and artistic swimming, but also regular swimming as well. Hopefully this success continues at the Olympics this year. It would be great to get more golds than the US. The motherland is not only militarily strong, but also athletically strong. Makes me soooo happy hahaha. This is not the weak man of Asia anymore.
Need to tamper expectations abit. This is a precursor to the Olympics but I would say not a good barometer to predict how the medals will be distributed. Almost all the big teams like US Aus China and UK are lacking many of their big stars in this meet. We will see how it goes in the national trials for each country. Who is in top form and who isn’t.
US biggest strength is still their great depth. They have many good swimmers and some great swimmers. This means they have a big advantage when it comes to the relay events and can afford to rest their stars in the prelims. It also mean they will likely lead the total medal count.
China on other hand is weak when it comes to depth. Which was shown 4x100 and 4x200 free relay events. China sent out the same team for both which is quite incredible, I don’t think it’s been done before afaik but also shows they had no choice as there is not much depth.
And in the mixed medley 4x100m men’s relay when they bombed out in the prelims cuz their backstroke leg was so weak. If Xu Jiayu who skipped this worlds meet is not in top form in Paris then the relay events will be in trouble cuz China’s next best backstroker is a lot worse than him. Plus China have to find a top level butterfly swimmer too which weakest event for men.
Having said all that, I’m also very happy at development of Chinese swimming at elite level. As long time Chinese swim fan who started watching back during the lackluster era, it is very gratifying to see how ot is now. I remember watching way back when zhang Lin was China best male swimmer and Sun Yang was only about 18 getting into his first Olympic final although he finished dead last then.
Back then Chinese swimming was spearheaded by Chinese female swimmers like the incredible butterflyer Liu Zige, breaststroker Luo xuejuan, and the formidable freestyle team. Men’s side though was very weak. I remember hearing some fan lamented that they should combine Chinese women’s team with Japanese men’s team which dominated Asian swimming at that time to form a super Asian team and compete with the whites. So it’s really satisfying for me to see Chinese men’s swimming finally rising up and forming a great swimming nation together with the women team. Although I believe men’s side achievements have eclipsed the women’s actually this time.
strange, as I thought they followed the swimming.
The aquatic championships usually start with the artistic swimming or synchronized swimming and then regular diving. Then the regular swimming events. I’m not sure about the high diving though.
Speaking of artistic swimming, anyone know if Russians are allowed to compete in Paris ? Tbh if so, gold should be theirs as they are traditionally the best in that event. So that’s probably few less gold for China.
