Shining post-90s sports stars (2)

Swimming career

Although Sun Yang had been swimming for several years, his international breakthrough happened at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. At the age of 16, Sun finished 28th in the 400 meters freestyle and failed to reach the finals. He rebounded from this by qualifying seventh fastest for the 1500 meters freestyle in a time of 14:48.39. In the final he would go on to swim much slower and finish dead last in the Olympic final. This was just the beginning of his career, as the following year at the World Championships in Rome, he would go on to win his first international medal with a bronze in the 1,500m freestyle with a time of 14:46.84. He also placed 18th in the 400 meters freestyle.

2012 Summer Olympics

Coming into the Games, Sun was a favorite in the 400 meters and 1500 meters freestyles as well as a medal contender in the 200 meters freestyle. In his first event on day one, the 400 meters freestyle, Sun won by a time of 3:40.14, becoming the first Chinese male swimmer to win a gold medal at the Olympics. His time was also the third fastest effort in history, 0.07 sec off the world record, and a new Asian record. After a day of rest, he competed in the 200 meters freestyle. In the final, he raced himself to a silver, tying with Park Tae-Hwan in a time of 1:44.93, a new national record. The following day, Sun would anchor the Chinese team to a bronze in the 4×200 meters freestyle relay, their first ever in the event. After the relay he would not be back in the pool until the final day of competition, where he would compete in his best event, the 1500 meters freestyle. After easily breezing into the final as the fastest qualifier, it seemed as though he would win by a longshot. At the initial line-up on the starting blocks, a step-down command was issued due to noises from the crowd, but instead of stepping back, Sun reacted by diving in. However, it was quickly determined this was not a false start since it was a step-down command. Thus Sun was allowed back in the competition. He went on to win the race in a time of 14:31.02, a new world record by over 3 seconds and over 8 seconds ahead of second place finisher Ryan Cochrane. These results made Sun the most successful Chinese male swimmer in Olympic history. Sun was the first swimmer to win the 400/1500 meters double since Vladimir Salnikov at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. It’s also worth noting that his final 50 meters of the race was a 25.68, nearly two seconds faster than second place finisher Ryan Cochrane.

2013 World Aquatics Championships

After a rough year of training and disputes with his coach, Sun was back in action at the World Championships. On the first day of the competition, Sun Yang improved on his silver showing at the last World Championships by winning Gold in the 400 meters freestyle, with a time of 3:41.59. While it was nearly a second and a half off his Olympic winning time from the previous year, he was still over three seconds ahead of the second place finisher Kosuke Hagino.[6] Two days later, Sun was able to retain his title in the 800 meters freestyle with a time of 7:41.36. It was his second gold medal in this Championships and the 100th gold medal won by China in the World Aquatics Championships history. [7] On day six of the meet Sun was given the task of anchoring the 4 x 200 meters freestyle Chinese relay team. China barely slid into the final at eighth place, but many thought Sun would be a huge benefit to the team, as China was the previous bronze medalists in this event at the last World Championships. Going into the final leg, China was in fifth, over two seconds behind France and Japan. This huge difference In time meant it would take a huge leg to go by these teams for the bronze medal, but Sun was able to overtake both teams in the end with a monster time of 1:43.16, nearly two seconds faster than anyone else in the field. Even taking the relay exchange out of this time, it’s still over a second faster than Yang's flat start time of 1:44.93. On the final day of the competition, Sun repeated his title as Olympic and World Champions in the 1500 meters freestyle by beating Ryan Cochrane again, despite in a time of 10 seconds slower than his world record finish in 2012 Olympics. By doing so, Sun becomes the first swimmer since Australian Grant Hackett, and second in the history, to win all three long distance gold medals in freestyle (400 meters, 800 meters and 1500 meters) in a single world championships game. This achievement leads him to be regarded as one of the greatest distance swimmers in history.