Teen sensation makes a splash on Asian Games debut, as China racks up six swimming golds

At just 13, Chinese swimmer Yu Zidi made the biggest splash on the opening day of the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, winning the women's 200-meter butterfly in a Games-record time as China collected six of the seven gold medals on offer.

Yu clocked 2 minutes, 5.08 seconds at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Sunday, beating silver-medal winner and teammate Chang Mohan to the gold by 2.87 seconds. In doing so, she broke the Asian Games record of 2:05.57 set by Zhang Yufei at the Hangzhou Asian Games.

China finished the opening day with six gold medals, one silver and two bronze medals. Besides the women's 200m butterfly, China won the women's 1,500m freestyle, men's 100m freestyle, women's 50m breaststroke, men's 100m backstroke and women's 4x100m freestyle relay.

Li Bingjie showed controlled pace and strong endurance to successfully defend her title in the women's 1,500m freestyle, leading from start to finish.