China’s Yu Zidi made history last year at age 12 when she became the youngest-ever medalist at the swimming world championships. Now a teenager, she is dominating at the Asian Games and has Olympic glory in her sights. The 13-year-old school girl with a pixie hair cut stunned the sporting world last year with a series of eye-popping times.
At the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, she helped China reach the 4x200-meter women’s freestyle relay final. She did not swim in the final, but China finished third, earning Yu a historic bronze for swimming in the heats. Yu just missed out on medals in the 200 and 400 individual medley events and the 200 butterfly, coming in fourth in all three races.
In November at China’s National Games, having just turned 13, she clocked a blistering 2 minutes, 7.41 seconds in the women’s 200 medley for what was then an Asian record. Now she is cleaning up at the Asian Games, winning gold in all three individual events she entered. She won the 200 butterfly and 200 individual medley, then completed the hat trick with a victory in the 400 IM on Wednesday.
All three victories were in Games-record times. While training with the China team in Beijing before the Games, she told local media she was “excited” for her Asian Games debut. Demonstrate the level of your training and work hard to break past yourself,” she said, according to state news agency Xinhua.
A coach, Ha Sinan, once described Yu with a Chinese saying that translates as “a newborn calf fearless of tigers.” But the teenager has spoken of struggling to deal with the heavy load placed on her. Yu grew up in the city of Baoding, about 150 kilometers south of Beijing. She was discovered by a swimming coach while at a water park at age 6 and has since juggled schoolwork with training.
Yu said she “never considered quitting” and always dreamed of being a national champion. But during the tune-p to last year’s National Games she said the pressure of wanting to win the 400 medley nearly became too much. Yu eventually told her coach she wanted to do anything other than train.
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