Women’s 200m fly

In women’s swimming it’s more and more the teenagers’ world, young and fresh ladies deliver world-class performances, late boomers are kind of rare – at least it’s exceptional to join the very highest circles without making a significant impact earlier. Zhang Yufei is one those who has been around for a while, earned bronzes at the Worlds, advanced to finals at majors but only emerged as a top contender for the Olympic title only this year. 

Aged 23, she rushed to silver in the 100m fly here in Tokyo and was dominating both in the heats and the semis in the 200m. Though the morning swims caused some upsets, top qualifiers faded in the big moment, young prodigies lost focus – but Zhang was just even more powerful in the final.

She charged ahead and never looked back. Indeed, she had nothing to be worried about – the others could not match her devastating speed. Her 58.29sec opening 100m did the damage, left no chance for her US rivals in the chasing game. Though Regan Smith and Hali Flickinger both came up with a stronger second 100m, there was no way to hide the gap which were closer to 2sec at the turns than to one.

Zhang hit the wall in an Olympic record time of 2:03.86, the first female ever under 2:04 minutes in the textile era – an amazing feat. Before this, among the top 10 performances there were only two post-shiny era efforts (both by Chinese, from 2011 and 2012), and among the top 10 performers Jiao Liuyang’s winning time from London 2012 (2:04.02) is the lonely one in textile below 2:04.60.

Smith trailed by 1.44sec upon winning silver, ahead of Flickinger, they both posted 2:05s while Hungary’s Boglarka Kapas was a distant 4th – she clocked 2:06.56, a better effort than the one she did in Gwangju which landed the world title for her, but times are changing and… are getting way faster.

Women’s 4x200m free relay

It’s hard to imagine a tougher programme for a female swimmer than producing the best-ever textile blast in the 200m fly in less than 2:04 minutes – then in little more than an hour coming back to the pool and swimming in the 4x200m free relay final.

Zhang Yufei was ready for this brutal challenge and didn’t fail her team-mates upon her second appearance in this morning. The Chinese were really set to make a splash here, that turned out quickly when Yang Junxuan beat freshly crowned Aussie Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus by 0.14sec in the opening leg (1:54.37, would have earned her the bronze in the individual final where she came 4th with 1:55.01). 

This determined the rest of the race since Yang gained two seconds on the US here. Thus Katie Ledecky produced the best split (1:53.76) of the entire race kind of in vain as the next three Chinese swimmers threw almost identical splits to the mix (Muhan Tang 1:55.00, Zhang Yufei 1:55.66, Li Bingjie 1:55.30), enough to clock an amazing new world record of 7:40.33. It was a crush, they bettered the Aussies’ old mark from Gwangju by 1:17sec. The quality of the final was outstanding, both silver medallist USA and bronze winner Australia came inside the old WR, setting new continental records respectively. Full results

And the hero of the day stood on the podium for the second time: Zhang Yufei achieved a rare feat of winning two Olympic golds in the same session – it was not yesterday when this happened for the last time in the women’s competition. Twenty-five years ago, USA’s Amy van Dyken clinched two titles in Atlanta 1996, first in the 100m fly, then with the 4x100m medley relay.

After completing this mission, Zhang admitted that she did not know in advance what kind of challenge would await her this morning.

"I didn't know I was doing it until I'd finished the 200 butterfly and our coach told me, 'You're in the relay.' I didn't even know how to swim the 200 free, although I have the training qualities and levels for the 200m distances. At the Chinese National Championships I went very fast, so maybe that's why the coaches asked me to join the relay."

Teammate Li Bingjie reinforced the story. "We knew Zhang would be swimming in the relay, but the coach told us not to tell her – she was the last one to know. We were inspired by her 200 butterfly and we were excited, and it made us determined to do our best at the relay. We were all in tears."

It may sound surprising but the Chinese never thought they had a chance here. "We didn't expect to win the gold, we just tried to finish third because Australia and the United States are very strong” Li said. “This morning the three of us just talked about tactics against Canada, we thought we'd be able to compete with them.”