Sun Yang of Zhejiang celebrates after the men's 4×200m freestyle final at 13th Chinese National Games in North China's Tianjin Municipality, Sept 3, 2017. Team Zhejiang claimed the title with 7 minutes and 12.64 seconds. (Photo/Xinhua)
One of the National Games biggest names, Sun Yang pocketed his fourth gold medal in the men's 800m freestyle swimming by a huge lead on Monday.[Special coverage]
The 25-year-old Olympic and world champion, having claimed golds at 400m, 200m and 4X200m relay of freestyle plus a silver from the 4X100m free relay, clocked seven minutes and 46.80 seconds for the 800m title, leading the second-placed Ji Xinjie of Shandong by over six seconds.
Sun ruled out an extra attention to the triumph, however, emphasizing his focus on the course itself.
"It was my 102nd gold medal in my career. But in fact, I focused more on my own performance. I tried to save some energy tonight because I will swim 1,500m and two relays," said Sun, who withdraw from the 100m free but still bids to win seven events in Tianjin.
Earlier in the evening, the 2015 Kazan worlds champion Ning Zetao proved himself the best in pool of the Games, winning men's 100m free in 47.92 which could rank him sixth in the world. Yu Hexin of Guangdong finished the second in 48.63 and Hou Yujie of Henan third on 49.06.
"I only started to prepare for the Games last May and my focus was 50m and 100m freestyle. I was satisfied with the results and my form today," said Ning, who's vying to swim the 50m free on Tuesday.
In another swimming final on Monday, Qin Haiyang from the Chinese Army delegation PLA shattered his own national record to win the 200m breaststroke in 2:07.35, also a new world junior record to be verified.
The previous national and world junior mark of the event was 2:08.71 set up by Qin at the Chinese National Spring Championships last April.
Yang Zibei, winner of the 100m breaststroke, came to second in 2:08.75 and local favorite Li Xiang was the third with a time of 2:10.67.
On women's part, former world bronze medalist Zhang Yufei from Jiangsu surged back from behind to win the 200m butterfly in 2:06.17, and the PLA women's quartet of Lyu Jiayi, Dong Fuwei, Fang Nan and Yan Siyu took the 4X200m free relay title.
Thirty-three gold medals were on offer in the Day-8 competitions of the quadrennial sports gala, including eight titles having been crowned on track and field, four of which were taken by reigning champions.
Athletes representing Shandong province retained a gold in the men's 20km team race walk on Monday morning, before Guangdong's established sprinter Wu Shuijiao successfully defended her title of 100m hurdle with a personal season best of 12.97s.
Apart from the track, Liaoning's Zhao Qinggang built his lead at the very first attempt and again lifted the trophy of javelin throw, while Wang Yu jumped 2.27m high to defend his title though falling on all three attempts at 2.30m, a height that China's high jumpers failed to conquer in 20 years.
Also on Monday, Olympian Peng Fei of Shaanxi beat younger Aishan Aisha from Xinjiang 5-2 to claim his first Games crown of men's 85kg Greco-Roman wrestling, while another Xinjiang wrestler Tuoerbatu nailed down the 59kg gold without breaking a drop of sweat.
The Shaolin Kungfu School-based Henan squad collected both the men's 60kg category, as well as the men's and women's team golds in the Wushu tournament's wrap-up day, while Shaanxi's Xu Jiaheng KOed his final rival You Xiong from Sichuan in just two seconds for the men's 90kg title.
On Tuesday, newly crowned shot put world champion Gong Lijiao will try to defend her title as 22 events come to the finals in Day-9 competitions.
