At the Junior World Championships in Melbourne in 2012, Han won the gold medal in the 1500 m superfinal as well as silver in the relay and over 500 m and bronze in the all- around event . At the beginning of the 2012/13 season he started the World Cup in Calgary for the first time and finished 48th in the 1500 m and 20th in the 1000 m. In the further course of the season he reached his first podium finishes in the World Cup in Montreal with second place and third place with the relay in Nagoya and Sochi . At the Junior World Championships in Warsaw in 2013 , he won gold medals over 1000 and 1500 m and silver medals over 500 m and in all-around. In March 2013 he finished fifth with the relay at the World Championships in Debrecen . In the following season he reached fifth place in the World Cup over 1000 m with two top ten placements over 1000 m. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he won the silver medal behind Charles Hamelin over 1500 m . In addition, he won the bronze medal with the Chinese relay over 5000 m behind the relay from Russia and the United States . At the World Championships in Montreal in March 2014, he again won the silver medal over 1500 m behind Charles Hamelin.
After finishing second with the relay in Salt Lake City at the beginning of the 2014/15 season, Han finished third in the relay in Dresden and won his first World Cup victories in Erzurum over 1500 m and relay. At the season highlight of the 2015 World Championships in Moscow , he won the bronze medal over 500 m and the gold medal with the relay. He finished the season in seventh place in the 1500 m World Cup. In the 2015/16 season he won the World Cup in Montreal over 1000 m and with the relay and took third place with the relay in Toronto and second with the relay in Nagoya . At the 2016 World Championships in Seoul , he won the gold medal in the 1500 m, 3000 m, all-around and with the relay. In the following season he triumphed in Salt Lake City and Shanghai with the relay and also achieved second place over 500 m in Salt Lake City. In February 2017, he won the gold medal with the relay at the Winter Asian Games in Sapporo . At the 2017 World Championships in Rotterdam , he won the silver medal with the relay. After third place over 1000 m and second place with the relay in Budapest at the beginning of the 2017/18 season, he finished third with the relay in Dordrecht and finally reached eighth place in the World Cup over 1000 m. At the 2018 Winter Olympics, Tianyu won the silver medal in the 5000 m relay.
In the 2019/20 season, Han won in Nagoya with the relay, in Shanghai over 1000 m and in Montreal and Dordrecht with the mixed relay. In addition, he took second and third place twice and at the end of the season finished second in the 1000 m World Cup.
Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Han is the family name here, Tianyu is the first name.