2025 CHINESE NATIONAL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- May 17-24, 2025
- Shenzhen, China
- LCM (50 meters)
- Results
The 2025 Chinese National Swimming Championships kicked off today from Shenzhen, with the competition representing the sole opportunity for the nation’s swimmers to qualify for this summer’s World Championships.
Competition within China is fierce and athletes will need to put up some of the best times of their careers in order to make the grade and book their tickets to Singapore.
We saw this type of tenacious battle unfold in the women’s 400m free, where it took 23-year-old Li Bingjie a new Asian Record to top the podium.
We reported how the Olympic medalist from Tokyo fired off a monster outing of 3:59.99 to delve under the 4:00 barrier for the first time in her career, becoming just the 6th woman in history ever to do so.
Yang Peiqi snagged silver in tonight’s race in 4:02.53, qualifying for Singapore in the process, while Liu Yaxin rounded out the podium in 4:02.57.
You can read more about Li’s incredible swim here.
The men’s 400m free final demonstrated the otherworldly range of 20-year-old Pan Zhanle.
The reigning 100m free Olympic champion and world record holder stopped the clock at 3:45.34 to eke out the victory narrowly ahead of Fei Liwei who settled for silver just .23 behind in 3:45.57.
Once-banned Olympic champion Sun Yang captured bronze in 3:47.53. Even if Sun had finished in the top two, his 4-year suspension for doping disqualified him from making the national team.
Sun’s performance was slightly speedier than the 3:47.94 logged at March’s Spring Nationals.
As for Pan, his outing tonight represented a new lifetime best, shaving .24 off his previous PB of 3:45.58 notched at last year’s edition of this competition. He frog hopped Li Yunqi to become China’s #6 performer of all-time in this 400m free.
Top 6 Chinese Men’s LCM 400 Free Performers All-Time
- Sun Yang – 3:40.14, 2012
- Zhang Lin – 3:41.35, 2009
- Fei Liwei – 3:44.24, 2024
- Hao Yun – 3:44.87, 2013
- Zhang Zhanshuo – 3:45.11, 2023
- Pan Zhanle – 3:45.34, 2025
The rest of the individual events on tonight’s agenda were semi-finals, with athletes setting them up for potential success for tomorrow night’s main events.
Yu Yiting grabbed the top slot in the women’s 200m IM, registering a time of 2:10.56. Fellow Olympian Ye Shiwen is in the mix with a 2nd-seeded 2:11.92 while Yu Zidi secured the 3rd seed.
Yu, who is just 12 years of age, fired off a time of 2:12.52 to put her name into the fold for possible Singapore qualification. The youngster split 27.80/34.11/39.43/31.18 to destroy her previous personal best of 2:14.04 registered at last year’s edition of this meet.
For perspective, Yu’s swim would obliterate the current U.S. National Age Group Records for girls and boys.
Teagan O’Dell owns the girls NAG at 2:18.69 while Richard Poplawski owns the goys in 2:13.59.
You can review Yu’s head-turning performances from last year here, as we keep an eye on what this emerging talent accomplishes this time around.
Yu Yiting also made it happen in the women’s 100m fly, producing a top-seeded outing of 57.57 to hold the advantage of 6-time Olympic medalist from Paris Zhang Yufei.
Zhang held fast at 57.94 with Wang Yichun earned the 3rd seed in 58.14.
Xu Fang landed lane 4 in the men’s 50m fly in 23.59, just .01 ahead of Chen Juner (23.60) and .06 ahead of Sun Jiajun (23.64).
Finally, world record holder Qin Haiyang made his presence known en route to snagging the top spot in the men’s 100m breaststroke.
The 26-year-old put up a time of 58.77, including splits of 27.44/31.33 to fall just shy of the season-best 58.61 he already established in March at Spring Nationals.
He’ll be the man to beat tonight, but Dong Zhihao, the 2024 world champion in the 200m breast, is chasing in 59.27 and 29-year-old veteran Yan Zibei will also be fighting with a semi-final swim of 59.64. Sun was also under a minute in 59.68 to make it a tight battle for the minor medals.
Pan 1:45.45 in 200 FR final.
46.40 and 3:45 is just insane.
Pan said the most important competition for him this year is Chinese National Games, he will focus on that and I ‘m just curious what kind of time he will achieve. When is the Chinese National Games? Sep.?
2025.11
Pan anchored the relay splitting a decent 47.40 barely an hour after his topping the podium of 400 free by a PB only to stage a déjà-vu upset his fellow Olympians are well aware of.
Retta, in case you are interested in precisely accurate articles, Sun Yang is not a once banned athlete, he has been banned twice!!!
This is part of photo description and is clearly misrepresentative of Sun Yangs history ;
“Once-banned Olympic champion Sun Yang”. It would be more accurate to write “Twice-banned……”
Pan Zhanle’s time in the M 400 FR is faster than Aaron Shackell’s time and Kieran Smith’s time at the 2024 USA Swimming Olympic Team Trials.
Pan’s freestyle technique is absolute perfection.
It was such a joy to watch him in Paris.
Yu Zidi’s time in the 200 IM is amazing
he loser
347 at that age is pretty good