Record-breaking gold medal for 13-year-old swimmer
- Published
Chinese schoolgirl Yu Zidi has won her first major gold medal with a record-breaking swim on the opening day of the Asian Games.
Thirteen-year-old Yu swam 200m butterfly in two minutes 05.08 seconds, an Asian Games record, beating the previous record set three years ago.
Yu, who is expected to be at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, said she hopes she "can swim even faster."
The Asian Games, which officially opened on 19 September, run until 4 October.
What are the Youth Olympic Games?
- Published5 days ago
Meet the teenage sisters swimming for different countries
- Published25 July
Yu took bronze as a 12-year-old as part of China's 4x200m freestyle relay team at the World Championships last year, becoming the youngest ever swimmer to win a medal there.
The teenager who has two more solo events at the Asian Games downplayed her swim.
"It was only so-so," Yu said, smiling after receiving her medal.
"I hope I can swim even faster. I improved my time by 0.9 seconds here, and I believe I will perform better next time," she continued.
Where is the Asian Games taking place?
The opening ceremony of the 20th Asian Games, Aichi-Nagoya, took place at Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium
The Asian Games, which was first held in 1951, is taking place in Nagoya, Japan, with over 40 sports and at least 11,000 athletes.
The games include traditionally Asian sports such as kurash, a type of wrestling, kabaddi, a contact sport and the team sport sepaktakraw.
This year mixed martial arts, padel and teqball have also been added, and Esports returns for the second time.
