Yu Zidi: Fearless swimming prodigy, 13, with Olympics in her sights

BEIJING – Yu Zidi made history in 2025 at the age of 12 when she became the youngest-ever medallist at the swimming world championships. Now a teenager, she headlines China’s bid for Asian Games domination and has Olympic glory in her sights.

The schoolgirl with a pixie haircut stunned the sporting world in 2025 with a series of eye-popping times.

At the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, she helped China reach the 4x200m women’s freestyle relay final.

She did not swim in the final, but China came third, earning Yu a historic bronze for swimming in the heats.

Yu just missed out on medals in the 200m and 400m individual medley events and the 200m butterfly, coming fourth in all three races.

In November at China’s National Games, having just turned 13, she clocked a blistering 2min 07.41sec in the women’s 200m medley for what was then an Asian record.

While training with the China team in Beijing, she told local media in September she was “excited” for her Asian Games debut.

“Train well, don’t slack off. Demonstrate the level of your training and work hard to break past yourself,” she said, according to state news agency Xinhua.

The Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, open on Sept 19.

Pressure ‘like a stone’

A coach, Ha Sinan, once described Yu with a Chinese saying that translates as “a newborn calf fearless of tigers”. But the teenager has spoken of struggling to deal with the heavy load placed on her.

Yu grew up in the city of Baoding, about 150km south of Beijing.

She started swimming at age six and since then, has juggled schoolwork with training.

“Being in class all day and still having to train was really tiring,” she said in January.

“Sometimes, I was so tired I could fall asleep even while eating,” she said at an event celebrating Hebei province’s National Games wins.

Yu said she “never considered quitting” and always dreamt of being a national champion.

But during the tune-up to the 2025 National Games she said the pressure of wanting to win the 400m medley nearly became too much.

“It was like a big stone that weighed on me and made it hard to breathe,” she said.

Yu eventually told her coach she wanted to do anything other than train.

Her coach told her to persevere and “believe in yourself”, she said.

Yu went on to win four medals at the National Games.

Some in the swimming world have questioned the mental and physical impact of high-level training and competing on Yu at such a young age.

Under World Aquatics rules, the minimum age for international championships is 14, but exceptions can be made for younger swimmers if – like Yu – they are fast enough.

Olympic dreams

It seems certain that Yu will compete at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, when she will be 15, and on current trajectory, will be a major medal threat.

She is aware that her success for someone so young has made international headlines. But she knows hard work outweighs innate talent.

In June, she won the women’s 400m medley in 4:30.79 at China’s national championships, a time which would easily have earned her silver at the Paris Games in 2024.

“Although talent determines where you start, going further and standing taller is dependent on perseverance and effort day after day,” Yu said at the January event.

“There is still a long road ahead,” she added.

“I will keep holding fast to my original dream, drawing strength from my team, to stand on the Olympic podium.” AFP