July 29, (THEWILL) – In a shocking upset in world swimming, Team China produced a record-setting performance in the Olympic 4×200-metre women’s event to stun the field as they smashed the world record on Thursday for a gold medal finish.
Composed of Yang Junxuan, Zhang Yufei, Li Bingjie and Tang Muhan, the Chinese swimmers touched the platform in only 7 minutes, 40.33 seconds ahead of the hitherto swimming champions of Team USA United States, who finished in a time of 7:40.73 and Team Australia’s 7:41.29 time.
The victory for the Chinese made it the first time since the event was introduced at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics that neither one of female athletes from Australia nor from the United States of America have won the 4×200-metre gold.
Before Thursday’s final all three teams had been swimming under the previous world record of 7:41.50 set by Australia at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships which were hosted in Gwangju, South Korea from July 12 to 28.
That was before China held off a late charge by America’s Katie Ledecky, who threatened an incredible comeback during the final leg, to be the first to reach the platform ahead of the chasing pair of American and Australian swimmers.
The record-holders Australia had been the overwhelming favorites coming in, with their women’s team already winning gold in the 4x100m relay on Sunday, where they broke their own world record to take victory.
In addition to that, the Australian star swimmer Ariarne Titmus led their Olympic 4×200-metre women’s team off on the back of wins in the 200 and 400 freestyle events this week almost certainly raising expectations that they would cruise to another victory and possible world record.
All these put together made the final outcome of a Chinese victory an unthinkable occurrence before Yang, Zhang, Li and Tang out-swam the entire field, broke the Australian record and took the gold medal.
American swimmer Ledecky was awed by the Chinese victory and said: “These girls swam their lights out and I got in a position where I thought I could take on those ladies next to us. I wish I had another half-second in me but I gave it my all.”
The Australian Titmus agreed: “It was a really fast race. We were under our previous world record, so it was still a good swim from us.
“I feel like I should’ve been better but it’s what you can do on the day and it’s been a big couple of days, so I’m happy to come away on the podium.”
The Aussies trailed the Chinese athlete Yang at the end of the first leg and that set the tone, as Australia’s Emma McKeon, a bronze medallist in the 100-meter butterfly, was behind after the second too.
China’s Zhang, who had earlier won gold in the 200-meter butterfly, conceded some ground to America’s Katie McLaughlin and Australian Madison Wilson in the third, before Ledecky made her move. The six-time Olympic gold medalist pushed past Australian anchor Leah Neale and looked like she could even snatch victory with one length remaining.
However, Li dug in to hold off Ledecky and win by less than 0.5 seconds. That was how China secured their second swimming gold of the Games, a world record and the biggest upset in the pool.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
