On the evening of December 17, Beijing time, at the 2021 Short Pool Swimming World Championships in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Chinese Olympic champion Zhang Yufei led the way in the women's 200-meter butterfly final, and finally won the championship with a time of 2 minutes 03.01 seconds, which was the first championship of the Chinese swimmers in this short pool world championships.
At this summer's Tokyo Olympics, Zhang Yufei won the gold medal in the women's 200m butterfly and set a new Olympic record. In addition, she led the Chinese women's swimming relay team to win the gold medal in the Olympic women's 4×200m freestyle relay. In the preliminary round of the 200-meter butterfly at the Short Pool World Championships, Zhang Yufei ranked second.
In the final, Zhang Yufei was in the leading position after starting, and as the competition progressed, Zhang Yufei continued to expand her advantage, and she was more than 2 seconds ahead of the second place at 150 meters. There was no suspense in the final moments of the game, Zhang Yufei alone led the first to touch the wall, she won the championship with a time of 2 minutes 03.01 seconds. Hook of the United States finished second in 2:04.35, and Zhang Yufei was 1.34 seconds ahead of runner-up, which was quite a big advantage.
As can be seen in a picture of the sprint stage, Zhang Yufei is almost one position ahead of his opponent. And many Chinese netizens have praised Zhang Yufei, worthy of being the "butterfly queen" who coexists with strength and appearance.
It is worth noting that this is Zhang Yufei's first short-pool World Championship champion. In the past three short pool world championships, Zhang Yufei has reached the final in the 200-meter butterfly event, ranking fourth in 2014, bronze medal in 2016, seventh in 2018, and has never won a championship. After the Olympic Games "broke the cocoon into a butterfly", Zhang Yufei also successfully made a breakthrough again at the Short Pool World Championships.