{"id":447928,"date":"2020-09-29T07:35:58","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T14:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=447928"},"modified":"2020-09-29T15:32:38","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T22:32:38","slug":"zhang-yufei-narrowly-misses-wr-in-100-fly-at-chinese-champs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/zhang-yufei-narrowly-misses-wr-in-100-fly-at-chinese-champs\/","title":{"rendered":"Zhang Yufei Narrowly Misses WR in 100 Fly at Chinese Champs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chinese National Championships continued Tuesday as a near-world record occurred in the heats of the women’s 100 butterfly.\u00a0Zhang Yufei<\/strong>, 22, blasted a 55.62 in the heats to break the Asian record that stood at 56.07 from\u00a0China’s\u00a0Liu Zige\u00a0<\/strong>back in the shiny suit era from 2009. Zhang’s swim also put her second all-time as she became the fourth swimmer to break 56 seconds. Zhang just missed\u00a0Sarah Sjostrom’s\u00a0<\/strong>world record of 55.48 from the 2016 Olympics.<\/p>\n

There was speculation that 2020 could produce no new world records in the sport of swimming<\/a>. Although that has been true through nearly nine whole months, but Zhang and Italian\u00a0Gregorio Paltrinieri<\/strong><\/a> have produced near-world records this year, improving on their best times to sit second in the all-time rankings. Zhang’s swim is the third fastest performance all-time behind Sjostrom’s gold medal swims at the 2016 Olympics and 2017 Worlds.<\/p>\n

This is a huge improvement for Zhang, 22, whose previous best was a 56.47 from last month<\/a>, and before that was a 57.29 from the 2017 Worlds. More known as a 200 butterflyer, she was the bronze medalist in the 200 fly at the 2015 Worlds and the gold medalist at the 2018 Asian Games in that event.<\/p>\n

At the 2019 Worlds, she didn’t advance past the semi finals in the 100 butterfly.<\/p>\n

All-time Rankings (Women’s 100 Butterfly)<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 55.48, Sarah Sjostrom, SWE, 2016<\/li>\n
  2. 55.63, Zhang Yufei, CHN, 2020<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. 55.83, Maggie MacNeil, CAN, 2019<\/li>\n
  4. 55.98, Dana Vollmer, USA, 2012<\/li>\n
  5. 56.07, Liu Zige, CHN, 2009<\/li>\n
  6. 56.08, Rikako Ikee, JPN, 2018<\/li>\n
  7. 56.18, Emma McKeon, AUS, 2017<\/li>\n
  8. 56.23, Jess Schipper, AUS, 2009<\/li>\n
  9. 56.37, Kelsi Dahlia, USA, 2017<\/li>\n
  10. 56.46, Penny Oleksiak, CAN, 2016<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n
    \n

    #2020CHNSwimChamps<\/a>
    \ud83d\udca5Women's 100 Fly Heat\ud83d\udca5
    Zhang Yufei 55.62 Asian Record
    Wang Yichun 58.48
    Li Shuang 58.65     pic.twitter.com\/87r0Y3uxCF<\/a><\/p>\n

    — Chinese Swimming News and Results (@CHNswim_fan) September 29, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n