Yu Zidi Shines at Asian Games with Record-Breaking Swim

The 13-year-old Chinese swimmer Yu Zidi has ripped up the script at the Asian Games. The clock says she is the fastest in the world this year. She insists the real pressure comes when the microphones appear.

Her 2min 06.10sec charge to gold in the individual medley was not just quick, it was era-defining. Only Canada’s prodigy Summer McIntosh has ever gone faster, and Yu finished a mere 0.40sec outside McIntosh’s world record. At 13, and turning 14 next month, she is already swimming in rarefied air.

Yet the teenager who looks so composed on the blocks has been doing everything she can to avoid the spotlight once she climbs out of the pool. After her latest blistering performance, she tried to slip away from the mixed zone, reluctant to face the line of cameras and recorders.

When she was finally persuaded to stop, the contrast with her ruthless racing was striking. She fidgeted, searched for words, and leaned on the reporters in front of her for help.

“How do I answer this question? Can you teach me? You just want me to say what I feel?” she asked in Chinese, a prodigy suddenly sounding every bit her age.

The times tell one story: a swimmer on a trajectory that points straight at a world record and, one day, perhaps Olympic domination. Her voice tells another: a schoolgirl still learning how to carry the weight that comes with being the face of a new generation.

Pressed on whether the questions and cameras are the hardest part of her new life, Yu didn’t pretend to be unfazed. She let out a giggle that cut through the tension.

“Every time I just want to float off somewhere else,” she said.

In the water, there is nowhere she would rather be. Outside it, the race has only just begun.