Sun Yang - 2012 Summer Olympics

2012 Summer Olympics

Coming into the Games, Sun was favourite in the 400 and 1500 freestyles as well as a medal contender in the 200 freestyle. In his first event on day one, the 400 freestyle, Sun won in a time 3:40.14, becoming the first Chinese male swimmer to win a gold medal at the Olympics. Of note, his time was also the third fastest effort in history, 0.07 sec off the world record, and a new Asian record. After a day of rest, he competed in the 200 freestyle. In the final, he raced himself to a silver, tying with Park Tae-Hwan in a time of 1:44.93, a new national record. The following day, Sun would anchor the Chinese team to a bronze in the 4×200 freestyle relay, their first ever in the event. After the relay he would not be back in the pool until the final day of competition, where he would compete in his best event, the 1500 freestyle. After easily breezing into the final as the fastest qualifier, it seemed as though he would win by a longshot. However, after getting up on the blocks, there was a step down, and Sun ended up diving into the water. In most cases, this would result in an automatic disqualification, but after it became clear that the cause was crowd noise, Sun was back in. He won the race in a time of 14:31.02, a new world record by over 3 seconds and over 8 seconds ahead of second place finisher Ryan Cochrane. These results made Sun the most successful Chinese male swimmer in Olympic history. Sun was the first swimmer to win the 400/1500 double since Vladimir Salnikov at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.