Early golds for Zhang, Qin show squad means business in Japan

FUKUOKA, Japan — Team China's pool stars showed the world they mean business, bagging back-to-back gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships in Japan on Monday.

The Chinese sweep saw Zhang Yufei win the women's 100-meter butterfly and Qin Haiyang go wire-to-wire in the men's 100m breaststroke.

Zhang, a hugely popular household name in China ever since her 200m butterfly gold at the Tokyo Olympics, rallied over the final 15 meters, touching in 56.12 seconds. Maggie MacNeil of Canada finished second in 56.45, and Torri Huske of the United States clocked 56.61 for third just two years after placing fourth in the event at the Tokyo Games.

The women's race was a rematch of the 100m final two years ago at the Olympics. The top four finishers in Tokyo were separated by only 14 hundredths of a second. That race went to MacNeil, followed by Zhang and Australian Emma McKeon. Huske was a mere one hundredth of a second behind McKeon in fourth.

"This is my first gold medal in the world championships," Zhang said, calling her competitors MacNeil, McKeon and Huske "my old friends".

Zhang said she's changed her racing style, holding back on the first leg "and then going as fast as I can on the last 50".

Her winning time was 0.64 seconds short of Swede Sarah Sjostrom's world mark of 55.48 set at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Zhang is confident that the record will not stand for long. "She is my idol," Zhang said at a news conference. "I remember that I just looked at her record and dreamed that one day I will be her. After so many years' hard work, I'm close to the world record now. It's just in front of me."

"I hope that one day I will break the world record and also I can be an idol for somebody else," she added.

Zhang believes that it will be the right time to rewrite the mark at the upcoming Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.

"We all know that it is not easy to break the world record," she said. "We need to work hard. We need to find the perfect moment to do the perfect job.

"The Asian Games seem the perfect chance for me. Let's just look forward to a new record."

That helped the Chinese team banish the memory of last year's world championships in Budapest, where it won only one individual swimming gold.