Zhang Zhanshuo, 19, First Swimmer With 7 Golds at One Asian Games

Chinese freestyler Zhang Zhanshuo finished the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sept. 25 as what France 24 and Malaysia's The Sun both called the first swimmer in history to win seven gold medals at a single edition of the Games. The 19-year-old completed the set by winning the men's 400m freestyle in a Games-record 3 minutes 41.28 seconds, in the closing session of the swimming programme.

The seven came from four individual freestyle distances — 200m, 400m, 800m and 1,500m — plus three relays. AP reported that Zhang celebrated at poolside by sitting on the lane divider and counting the medals off on his fingers. The Sun lists him at 198cm, or 6ft 6in.

The timing was set by the schedule rather than by any one race. The organising committee's venue page for the Tokyo Aquatics Centre — swimming and diving were held in Tokyo, not in Nagoya — lists twelve swimming sessions between Sept. 20 and Sept. 25, the last of them, SWM12, on Sept. 25, ending at 19:00. The pool itself was built for the Tokyo 2020 Games and completed in February 2020, the same page says.

China won five of the seven finals contested on that closing day, according to AP. Li Bingjie took the women's 800m freestyle in 8:24.02, Zhang Yufei the 50m butterfly in 25.41 with teammate Wu Qingfeng second, Qin Haiyang the 50m breaststroke in 26.68, and the women's 4x100m medley relay finished in 3:54.55. Japan's Kodai Nishiono won the 200m backstroke in 1:56.42, and Taiwan's Wang Kuan-hung the 200m butterfly in 1:55.05.

The individual haul sits inside a national one. AP reported that China took a record 30 swimming golds and 54 medals across the six days, ahead of the 28 golds it won three years ago in Hangzhou, while Japan finished with seven golds and 37 medals overall. Zhang on his own matched Japan's entire gold count for the meet.

His seven were not the only mark set at the Tokyo pool. Japan's Shin Ohashi, 17, swam the only world record of these Games on Sept. 24, winning the 200m breaststroke in 2:04.83 against the 2:05.48 that Qin Haiyang set at the 2023 world championships in Fukuoka. China's 13-year-old Yu Zidi won three golds, in the 200m butterfly and both individual medleys, her 200m IM clocked at 2:06.10.

Zhang described the week as a staging post rather than a summit. "I think the most important thing is to stay grounded and focused, because the Asian Games are not my ultimate goal," he said in remarks carried by The Sun and France 24, pointing to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. The same-day reports did not set out which relay legs he swam, and none of them measured how a freestyle range that wide would hold up against an Olympic field. That test comes in Los Angeles.