Breaststroke king Qin Haiyang back to his best with 100m win at World Aquatics Championships

SINGAPORE – The king of breaststroke is back.

After creating history by sweeping the men’s 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke titles at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships (WCH), Qin Haiyang’s highly anticipated coronation at the Paris 2024 Olympics turned out to be an anti-climax as he finished seventh over 100m and did not even qualify for the 200m final.

A year later, the 26-year-old Chinese swimmer’s road to redemption has begun. At Singapore’s WCH Arena on July 28, he reclaimed the 100m crown in 58.23sec, ahead of Italy’s Olympic champion Nicolo Martinenghi (58.58) and Kyrgyzstan’s Denis Petrashov (58.88), who won his country’s first WCH medal.

After reeling in Martinenghi in the last 25m, Qin summed up his first international win since the Olympic setback in four English words: “Finally, I’ve come back.”

Later at the mixed zone, Qin, who is also competing in the 50m and 200m breast, said in Mandarin: “This definitely helps with confidence. I’m competing in three events, and they’re all tough ones. In the last 10m, we were all spent, maybe this was when my technique gave me a little bit of an advantage.

“This win gives me confidence. To win this gold medal is not something that’s easily said and done for me. I want to still be able to achieve my dreams. That dream is to achieve Olympic gold in this event.”

It had been a whirlwind 2024 following his 2023 WCH heroics.

In the lead-up to the Olympics, he injured his knee and claimed that the vigorous dope testing of Chinese athletes were “tricks to disrupt our preparation rhythm and destroy our psychological defence”.

Following his Olympic misadventure, where he still picked up a men’s 4x100m medley gold and mixed 4x100m medley silver, he was accused of infidelity by his fiancee, which he brushed off as “fake news”.

In 2025, he started working with famed Australian coach Michael Bohl, who mentored Australia’s Olympic champion Emma McKeon, and looks to have rediscovered his form.

Qin told the Chinese media: “I put too much emphasis on physical training last year, but this did not translate into good results. I’m going to focus more on pool training... and the results are showing.

“Bohl knows very well what athletes think. He has his unique way of helping me to relax and focus. Before races, he would tell me at most to keep it simple, and that is what I need now – focus on the process and not be held back by the outcome or pressure.

“I will not be a youngster at LA 2028, and it’s a huge project to balance training intensity, injury prevention and maintaining top form as I age. It would be a great success if I can climb out of the low, but this is also a great challenge and a very difficult process because it is full of unpredictability.”

What is certain is Summer McIntosh’s dominance in the women’s 200m individual medley, as the Canadian won in 2:06.69, ahead of American Alex Walsh (2:08.58) and Canada’s Mary-Sophie Harvey (2:09.15). China’s 12-year-old Yu Zidi finished fourth and missed out on bronze by just 0.06.

McIntosh, 18, who won the women’s 400m freestyle and is also eyeing golds in the 200m butterfly, 400m IM and 800m freestyle, said: “Going in tonight, my goal was to get my hand on the wall first, so to get that done is good. I’m not super happy with the time, but honestly, at a world championships, my goal is just to go as fast as I can against my competitors.

“Still, happy with the gold and hoping to keep up my streak next time.”

In the fast pool at the WCH Arena, American Gretchen Walsh set a women’s 100m butterfly championship record when she won in 54.73 to lower Swede Sarah Sjostrom’s 2017 mark of 55.53 and go within 0.13 of her own world record.

Referencing the stomach bug that has plagued the US team since their training camp in Thailand, the 22-year-old said: “I faced it back the last couple days, my body has just been fragile, and I think that I’ve needed to give myself grace. It took a lot of guts.

“I think I just wanted to go out here and do it for my team. Represent the flag well and I think that race just came out of somewhere. But I’m really, really happy.”

Belgian Roos Vanotterdijk (55.84) and Australia’s Alexandria Perkins (56.33) took silver and bronze respectively, for their first WCH medal.

The men’s 50m butterfly final was the fastest ever, with all eight swimmers going under 23 seconds and five setting national records.

Frenchman Maxime Grousset claimed gold in 22.48, pipping Swiss Noe Ponti (22.51), who collected his first long-course WCH medal. Italian Thomas Ceccon (22.67) took bronze 20 minutes after making the 100m backstroke final as the fourth-fastest semi-finalist in 52.35.