With the end of the Short Pool World Championships, the 2021 journey of the Chinese Swimming Team has officially come to an end. Looking back at 2021, whether it is the Tokyo Olympics or the Short Pool World Championships, this team has delivered excellent answers. Looking forward to 2022, the China-Japan showdown will become a focus topic again.
For Chinese swimming, there are two major events in the 2021 season, namely the Tokyo Olympics and the Abu Dhabi Short Course World Championships, and the Tokyo Olympics are undoubtedly the top priority. However, due to Sun Yang's ban and Xu Jiayu's mediocre state, Zhang Yufei was regarded as the "only hope", and foreign media also predicted that only Zhang Yufei of the Chinese legion could win a gold medal. However, the Chinese swim team spoke with facts and fought back with facts, Zhang Yufei won the women's 200 butterfly gold medal, Wang Shun won the men's 200 mixed championship, and the Chinese women's team won the 4x200 self-relay gold medal. In addition, Zhang Yufei also won the second place in the women's 100 butterfly, the Chinese team won the 4x100 meters mixed silver medal, and Li Bingjie became the third place in the women's 400 since. Among them, Zhang Yufei broke the 200 butterfly Olympic record, the Chinese women's team broke the 4x200 self-relay world record, and Wang Shun, although he only rewrote the Asian record, was also the fastest 200 mixed result after the London Olympics. 3 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze, ranking fourth in the Gold Medal and Medal Table of Dong'ao Swimming, which is also the third best result in the history of Chinese swimming after 4 gold in 1992 and 5 gold in 2012.
At the end of the year in Abu Dhabi Short Pool World Championships, the Chinese swimmers won 4 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze and ranked sixth in the results list, which is also the best result written by China in the Short Pool World Championships after 2006, and such results were also absent from Xu Jiayu, Yang Junxuan, Tang Muhan and other team members, and the national team only sent half of the main players to fight.
Looking forward to 2022, because of the Fukuoka World Championships and the Hangzhou Asian Games, the Sino-Japanese pool battle will become a drama not to be missed. At the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, China and Japan each won 19 swimming gold medals, but the Chinese team lost to Japan in the number of medals. At the 2019 Gwangju World Championships, China won 3 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze, while Japan won 2 gold, silver and 2 bronze. It should be noted that Sun Yang participated in the above two competitions. Then next year's World Championships and Asian Games, the Chinese men's team basically hopes for Xu Jiayu, Yan Zibei and Wang Shun.