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Sun claims 1st national title of 100m free at Chinese Championships

Xinhua, April 14, 2017 Adjust font size:

Freestyle specialist Sun Yang took his first national title of the men's 100m event at the Chinese National Swimming Championships here on Friday as the triple Olympic champion has won four gold medals so far.

Sun, 25, competed in the two-lap event for the second time and finished first in a mediocre result of 49.27 seconds.

His debut in the 100m race was at the 2013 National Games where he took a bronze medal in his personal best of 48.94 seconds.

"I didn't swim fast enough, but I'm satisfied with my performance," said Sun, who has already pocketed the freestyle titles of 200m, 400m and 800m since the opening day on Monday.

Cameron McEvoy of Australia swam to the fastest time of the year in 47.91 seconds, 0.04 seconds faster than his silver medal winning mark at the 2015 World Championships, where Chinese swimmer Ning Zetao took the gold in 47.85 seconds.

"I made no expectation for the result in the 100m event. I just want to take it as a practice, which I think is helpful for the longer-distance races," said Sun, who swam to the fastest times of the year in both the 200m and 400m events at Qingdao.

Sun still has one more event to compete as he is slated to swim the 1,500m freestyle heats on Sunday.

In the first final on Friday, Wang Shun clinched the men's 200m individual medley title with a national record of one minute and 56.16 seconds.

At the Rio Olympic Games last year, Wang took the bronze medal in one minute and 57.05 seconds.

"I'm not 100 percent fit for this competition, because I suffered therapeutic pneumothorax earlier and I had to change my training schedule," said Wang. "I hope I could improve my timing as close as possible to those of the top medley swimmers."

Fu Yuanhui took her second gold at Qingdao as she touched home first in the women's 50m backstroke final in 27.36 seconds, 0.25 seconds slower than her world title winning mark at Kazan in 2015.

The 21-year-old Fu won the 100m backstroke with a national record of 58.72 seconds on Wednesday, 0.04 seconds faster than her Olympic bronze medal winning time in Rio.

In other finals of the day, Zhou Yilin took victory in the women's 200m butterfly in two minutes and 7.36 seconds. Team Hebei won the women's 4x200m freestyle relay in seven minutes and 53.50 seconds. Endit