Tang Yi

Tang Yi
Tang Yi at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Personal information
Surname:	Tang Yi
Nation:	China
Swimming style (s) :	Freestyle
Birthday:	January 8, 1993
Place of birth:	Shanghai
Size:	1.76 m
Weight:	70 kg
Medal table

Tang Yi ( 唐奕 , Táng Yì ; born January 8, 1993 in Shanghai ) is a Chinese swimmer and is considered to be one of the greatest young talents in international swimming.

Career

She made her first appearance on the international stage at the World Youth Championships in August 2006 in Rio de Janeiro . In the 50 and 100 meter freestyle , she narrowly missed the possible bronze medals in fifth and fourth place. Only defeated by the French Ophélie-Cyrielle Etienne , she secured second place in the 200 meters freestyle. In December of the same year, at the age of only 13, she took part in the Asian Games in Doha and swam to victory in the 4 x 200 meter freestyle relay.

For the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne , the Chinese federation Tang did not call into the squad. As a result, she missed the qualification standard for the individual competitions of the 2008 Summer Olympics , which meant that she only competed in the 4 × 100 meter freestyle relay in front of her home crowd in Beijing . Although the quartet was able to break the 14-year-old Asian record in 3: 35.64 minutes, they had to admit defeat to the Australians in a duel for bronze. At the World Cup in Rome the following year , Tang was once again only used over the short relay distance; Despite improving the Asian record by a further hundredth of a second, the team only came in sixth in the final. Four months later he was able to win three silver medals in the individual competition at the Asian Championships and in this way at least conclude the season in a forgiving manner.

2010 turned out to be the most successful year of her sporting career so far. At the beginning of the year, Tang set a new Chinese national record for the 200 meters freestyle on the short course at the Japan Open with 1:54.76 minutes. At the subsequent national championships she benefited from the absence of the favored Pang Jiaying and was able to secure the titles over 100 and 200 meters freestyle. Her career highlight so far was in August at the Summer Youth Olympic Games in Singapore , when she swam to six gold medals and thus became the outstanding athlete in the competitions. This was followed by four title wins and two silver medals at the Asian Games in Guangzhou in November , before Tang traveled to Dubai with the Chinese team for the World Short Course Championships . There she was able to achieve podium positions with all three seasons in which she competed and thus secured her first two world championship titles. In particular, the final over the 4 × 100 meter individual medley should be emphasized, because Tang managed to catch up to the leading American Jessica Hardy as the final swimmer , overtake her and be the first to hit. The Chinese relay team around Tang even set a new world record over twice the distance in freestyle.

In 2011, Tang's successful streak continued with a bronze and a silver medal at the world championship held in her hometown before she was able to win two races in the Summer Universiade in Shenzhen (or her relay). She then qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London . On their first day, she led the 4 x 100 meter freestyle relay to the finals as the starting swimmer. There it was only enough for fourth place despite a strong time by Tang. A few days later, she reached the semi-finals of the 100 meter freestyle with the fastest lead time. She reached the final and won there in front of, for example, Jessica Hardy , Missy Franklin and the reigning world champion over this distance, Jeanette Ottesen , the bronze medal. On the last day of the London swimming competitions, she and her compatriots competed in the final over 4 × 100 meters; the season reached fifth place.

On the other hand, Tang's performance at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona was disappointing in every respect : In the 100 meter freestyle she was only seventh in the finals, and over half the distance she did not even get past 26th place in the preliminaries. As the final swimmer of the 4 × 100 meter individual medley relay, she hit fourth.

Records

World records (1)
4 × 200 m freestyle (short course) (together with Chen , Liu , Zhu )	07: 35.94 min	December 15, 2010	Dubai
Asian Records (5)
100 m freestyle (short course)	00: 52.27 min	December 18, 2010	Dubai
200 m freestyle (short course)	01: 53.07 min	December 19, 2010	Dubai
4 × 100 m freestyle (short course) (together with Zhu , Pang , Li )	03: 29.81 min	December 18, 2010	Dubai
4 × 100 m layers (short course) (together with Zhao , Zhao , Liu )	03: 48.29 min	December 17, 2010	Dubai
4 × 100 m freestyle (together with Li , Zhu , Pang )	03: 35.63 min	July 26, 2009	Rome
(As of August 2, 2012)

Web links

• Tang Yi in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Tang is the family name here, Yi is the first name.