An 11-year-old wonderkid has been making waves at the Chinese National Swimming Championships in Shenzhen, finishing the women’s 400-metres individual medley two seconds shy of the qualifying time for the Paris Olympics.
Yu Zidi’s four minutes and 40.97 seconds on Sunday secured her second place in the final and would have been enough to earn her a spot at the World Aquatic Championships in Qatar in February.
The Hong Kong record for the women’s 400m individual medley is Chloe Cheng’s time of 4:48.58, which she took from Siobhan Haughey in 2021.
Despite grabbing the attention of the swimming world, Yu’s time was still only enough to finish as runner-up in the race as she touched the wall one second after Yu Yiting.
Yu Yiting, 18, was one of the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ), a prescription heart drug that can enhance performance, before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
The news of the positive tests broke last week, forcing the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) to say it was aware of the incident and accepted China’s explanation the tests had been contaminated.
However, United States officials cried cover-up and on Friday Wada called on an independent prosecutor to review its handling of the case.
Yu, who is still in primary school, will not compete at the Summer Games in Paris in July, but is competing in 10 events at the championships in Shenzhen.
There is no age limit for athletes to compete in swimming at the Olympics but China has already reached its quota of 26 female athletes.
In the 400m freestyle on April 19, Yu swam a 4:10.73 time in the heats and then 4:12.10 in the final, finishing seventh.
Her time in the heats was 2.83 seconds off the Olympic qualifying standard.
Yu’s medley and freestyle times would make her the 11th- and 12th-fastest American in history, respectively.
Yu was born in Baoding, Hebei province in October 2012. When she was nine years old, she was scouted at a swimming meet and offered the chance to move to neighbouring city Hengshui so that she could train at Club Swimming and join the provincial team.
“Yu Zidi came to the club in December 2021 for the Hebei Provincial Swimming Training programme,” a spokesman for Club Swimming said.
“The club regularly undertakes training sessions for Hebei’s young swimmers and selects talents from these sessions.
“Yu Zidi came to the club by participating in the training programme.”
Yu burst onto the scene in 2023, when she competed in the Chinese Spring National Championships in March.
Her stand-out performance was again in the 400m individual medley, where she clocked in at 4:53.
By the end of the year, she was back in the pool at national competitions and managed to shave five seconds of her previous mark, this time finishing in 4:38.36.
“There’s no specific goal for competitions this year, but the target for the national championships [in Shenzhen] is to get as many medals as possible.”
The spokesman clarified that the lack of a target for this year is due to Yu’s age and the club not wanting to give her too much pressure.
However, Chinese media and fans have been quick to tout her as the new Ye Shiwen, who won gold in the 400m and 200m medley at the 2012 Summer Olympics, just two months before Yu was born.
“Right now, she’s the best swimmer we’ve got but whether she’ll be able to go to international competitions next year isn’t clear yet,” the spokesman added.