BARELY PAUSING FOR BREATH
The hard work and sacrifice that goes into China’s relentless push for pool glory was typified by the team’s lung-busting training session on New Year’s Day’s in Kunming, Yunnan province.
No relaxing holiday for this dedicated bunch — just hours of eating up lengths at the high-altitude Haigeng National Training Center, where Team China has wasted no time in kicking off its winter workouts despite a medal-laden past 12 months.
With no Olympics or long-course world championships being contested, 2018 was considered something of a gap year for the team, but there was still plenty to cheer about as the medals flowed at the Asian Games and last month’s short-course worlds in Hangzhou.
Team China bagged 13 medals in total, including three golds, to finish third behind the United States (36) and Russia (14) at the biennial 25-meter worlds, ending 2018 on a high with the nation’s best haul at an international event since the 2012 London Olympics.
At August’s Asiad in Indonesia, China matched old rival Japan by scooping 19 golds in a mouth-watering taster of the bigger battle to come at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“The competition for world elite status alongside the dominating US is only getting fiercer in the lead-up to Tokyo 2020. For us, it’s a huge challenge to step up and claim a spot in the top echelon,” said Cheng Hao, national team manager, after the Hangzhou meet.
Cheng added that the team’s 2018 performances had laid a strong foundation for this year’s long-course worlds and the Tokyo Games, although noting that some of the successes were tempered by the absence of big names from the US and Australia.
Spearheading China’s surge was threetime Olympic champion Sun Yang, who swept all four individual freestyle titles (200, 400, 800 and 1500m) in Indonesia, as well as adding two relay silvers (4x100 and 4x200 free) to his collection.
The dominance earned him the 2018 Male Pacific Rim Swimmer of the Year award, named by US-based magazine
More satisfying for Sun, however, was seeing his technical improvements bear fruit at the worlds in his hometown.
A distance specialist in the 50m pool, Sun signed up for the men’s 4x200 free relay as his only event in Hangzhou and helped the team land bronze in 6:47.53 behind Brazil and runner-up Russia.
Sun attributed his superb third leg of 1:41.25 to his efforts in fine-tuning his starts, turns and underwater kicking as he bids to gain a small but critical advantage in speed for individual races.
“My goal to excel in multiple events requires me to pursue all possible improvements, especially the technical details, which used to be my weakness,” said Sun, who won Olympic golds in 200, 400 and 1500 free at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Games.
“To test my training in short-pool races and even swimming individual medley in drills will help me discover new areas where I can push for greater speed.”
A race over 25m lengths involves more turns, push-offs and underwater kicks than in an Olympic-standard 50m pool, thus offering more opportunities to gauge technical refinements, according to Sun’s long-term mentor, Zhu Zhigen.
“His goal is to make history at the Olympics in Tokyo, but to do so he needs to learn from the experience this time and continue to improve his endurance at the winter training camp,” said Zhu.
With youth no longer on his side, the 27-year-old has shifted his focus from distance to speed, setting his sights on defending his 200 title, recapturing the 400 won by Australia’s Mack Horton at the 2016 Rio Games and winning the 800’s Olympic debut in Tokyo.
Zhu will soon be joined in Kunming by Aussie coach Denis Cotterell as they step up Sun’s preparations for the long-course worlds in Gwangju, South Korea in July.
Also impressing in 2018 were men’s backstroke specialist Xu Jiayu and women’s sprinter Liu Xiang.
Xu, the reigning long-course 100 back champion, set a new 25m-pool world record of 48.88 over the distance at a World Cup meet in Tokyo in November, while Liu claimed the women’s long-course 50 back mark by clocking 26.98 at the Asian Games.
Both results made the rest of the world’s elite take note.
“You always assume with a guy like that they are going to be right there,” US star Ryan Murphy said of Xu after pipping his Chinese rival to gold in the 100 in Hangzhou.
“He is really one of the best and he’s got tons of talent. It’s not easy to race a guy like him. He puts up a great fight every time.”
Murphy owns the 100 and 200 backstroke golds from the Rio Olympics, but was beaten by Xu in the 100 at the 2017 long-course worlds.
And the American expects battle to bring out their best.
“He just needs to continue to get better. It’s been great so far. We are both 23, so hopefully we are going to do this for a lot of years,” Murphy added.
Team China, meanwhile, is targeting an improvement in relay races as it bids to challenge the overall dominance of the US.
At the Hangzhou worlds, Wang Jianjiahe, Li Bingjie, Yan Junxuan and Zhang Yuhan won the host’s only relay title in the women’s 4x200 free, with the US claiming nine of the 12 relay golds up for grabs.
“Random results in individual events do not represent consistent power in the sport if measured against world leader the US,” said team manager Cheng.
“We will focus more on improving our relay teams to try to close the gap. their seesaw