China News Service Qingdao, March 2 (Hu Yaojie, Wang Yuxuan, Xu Yiru) The 2024 National Spring Swimming Championships will start on March 1 in Laoshan District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province. On the opening day, the champions of six events, including the women's 100-meter breaststroke, men's 100-meter breaststroke, men's 400-meter freestyle, and women's 200-meter butterfly, were decided.
On March 1, Zhao Yipu (first from left) won the men's 400-meter freestyle final championship with a time of 3:54.11 at the 2024 National Spring Swimming Championships. Photo by Wang Yuxuan.
On the first day of competition, a number of youngsters broke their personal bests. Among them, Zhao Yipu, a 16-year-old teenager of the Shandong team, performed well, overwhelmed his opponent and entered the final with the first place in the men's 400-meter freestyle preliminaries. In the final, Zhao Yipu won the championship with a time of 3:54.11.
After the game, Zhao Yipu said that the whole schedule was not easy, and in the final sprint stage of the game, he tried his best to "counterattack". Zhao Yipu personally did not expect to be able to break through his best results.
On March 1, Liao Jialiang (middle) won the gold medal in the men's 100m breaststroke final of the 2024 National Spring Swimming Championships with a time of 1:01.99. Photo by Wang Yuxuan.
In addition, Guangxi's 18-year-old Liao Jialiang maintained his stable performance in the preliminaries, refreshed his personal best, and won the gold medal in the men's 100m breaststroke final with a time of 1:01.99. Jiangsu 14-year-old Lu Qinyao won the women's 100m breaststroke championship with a time of 1:09.32.
The 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha women's 4 200m freestyle relay champion Gong Zhenqi did not win the women's 1500m freestyle final, and finally finished third with a time of 16:38.60.
On March 1, the 2024 National Spring Swimming Championships kicked off in Qingdao, Shandong. Photo by Wang Yuxuan.
This competition is one of the qualifying events for the National Swimming Championships, which will be held in April. Ding Lingdi, technical representative of the 2024 National Spring Swimming Championships, said that the purpose of this competition is to allow more young athletes to reach the National Swimming Championships and improve the experience and competitive level of the athletes through competitions.
This competition is the first national-level A-level swimming event to be held in 2024, and it is also one of the highest-level events in China's swimming industry. Nearly 900 athletes from 26 provincial and municipal teams competed in 28 events during the four-day competition. (ENDS).