On December 16, local time, the 2021 Short Course Swimming World Championships launched its first competition day in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. In the men's 200m individual medley final, China's Wang Shun finished fifth and had no chance to defend his title. The Chinese team also finished fifth in the two relay finals that ended that day. Hong Kong's Ho Shi-bei won the gold medal and broke the world record in the women's 200m freestyle final.
In the men's 200m individual medley final on the same day, Wang Shun started from the seventh lane. In the first 50 meters, Wang Shun trailed the leading Japanese player Daiya Seto in third place by 0.3 seconds, and in the subsequent backstroke competition, Wang Shun fell out of the top three, and Wang Shun was fifth after swimming breaststroke. In the end, Wang Shun finished the whole process with 53.41 seconds in 1 minute, unable to complete the project's short pool world championship three consecutive championships. Seto Daisuke also won the championship with a time of 1:51.15.
Wang Shun Infographic
In the 4×100m freestyle relay final, the Chinese team composed of Cheng Yujie, Zhang Yufei, Zhu Menghui and Wu Qingfeng finished in fifth place, with a time of 3:31.17. The U.S. team won the championship in 3:28.52. In the men's 4×100m freestyle relay final, the Chinese team finished fifth in 3 minutes 10 seconds 11 seconds. Russia won the championship in 3:03.45.
In the women's 200m freestyle final, He Shibei rode to the dust, winning the championship in 1:50.31 and breaking the original world record of 1:50.43 held by Sweden's Sjöström. This is the first world record broken by this competition.
In addition, the men's 400m title was won by Austria's Obock in 3:35.90. In the men's 200m butterfly final, Italy's Lazitti won in 1:49.06. In the women's 400m medley showdown, Canada's Seplucha won the title in 4:25.55 and set the event's world best of the year.
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