What’s Next for 13-Year-Old Phenom Yu Zidi? Asian Games a Major Opportunity
A teenager for less than a year, Yu Zidi is already accustomed to the spotlight. Such is life when you race at the World Championships as a 12-year-old, and break an Asian record as a 13-year-old. The former was achieved in Singapore last summer, the Chinese youngster earning a bronze medal for her efforts in the prelims of the 800-meter freestyle relay. The latter was accomplished last November, when Yu went 2:07.41 in the 200 individual medley at the Chinese National Games.
Now, Yu is preparing for the next major competition of her fledgling career.
Next month’s Asian Games in Tokyo will provide an indication of Yu’s latest development, her schedule for the meet expected to include the 200 butterfly, 200 individual medley and 400 IM. At last year’s World Champs, Yu was the fourth-place finisher in each of those events, and she has already been faster in each discipline. Her Asian record in the 200 IM (since broken) served as the perfect way to end the 2025 campaign, and she has recorded personal bests this year of 2:05.71 in the 200 fly and 4:30.79 in the 400 IM.
What will Yu produce at the Asian Games. Well, don’t be surprised if the teen generates sizable drops. For one, she is at an age where – despite her mind-blowing times – improvement tends to come in chunks. More, the Asian Games have always been treated as secondary only to the Olympic Games, so there is no doubt Yu has been targeting the meet as her focus competition for the year.
The individual medley events should be the highlights of Yu’s meet. In the 200 IM, she’ll battle with countrywoman Yu Yiting, who broke the teenager’s Asian record by clocking 2:06.82 in June. The older Yu is coming off a gold medal in the 200 medley at the Pan Pacific Championships, where she went 2:07.45 to defeat world-record holder Summer McIntosh of Canada and three-time World Championships medalist Alex Walsh of the United States.
As for the 400 IM, the 4:30.79 she managed at the National Games made her the No. 7 performer in event history. Is a sub-4:30 performance on the horizon? If so, it would move her into a group that includes the likes of Olympic champions McIntosh, Stephanie Rice, Katinka Hosszu and Ye Shiwen. The 2012 Olympic gold medalist, Ye owns the Asian record at 4:28.43.
If Ye ventures beyond her familiar events, the 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle are the likeliest options. In addition to being part of China’s preliminary 800 freestyle relay at the 2025 Worlds, she went 4:05.06 in the 400 free earlier this year.
The Asian Games will have plenty of intriguing storylines, from the continued rise of Japanese breaststroker Shin Ohashi to what Hong Kong veteran Siobhan Haughey will do in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle. But Yu might be the most-watched athlete of the meet, the interest in her precocious talent always off the charts. Let’s see what she delivers.
