World Swimming Championship: Emotional Yu Zidi, 12, celebrates historic bronze medal

China’s Yu Zidi stated she felt “fairly emotional” after the 12-year-old turned the youngest swimmer in historical past to win a world championships medal.

Yu swam within the heats of the ladies’s 4x200m freestyle relay however missed Thursday’s (July 31, 2025) closing as China claimed bronze behind Australia and the United States in Singapore.

Yu, who was competing within the girls’s 200m butterfly closing on Thursday (July 31, 2025) — ending fourth — obtained a medal as a member of the Chinese relay workforce.

“It feels fairly emotional, it’s a pleasant feeling,” she stated.

Yu has turned heads along with her performances in Singapore.

She certified for Monday’s 200m particular person medley closing and completed fourth, lacking out on a medal by simply 0.06sec in what just isn’t thought-about her strongest occasion.

She adopted that up with one other fourth within the 200m butterfly closing and also will compete within the 400m particular person medley.

Yu, who turns 13 in October, found swimming at age six as a strategy to cool off throughout China’s roasting summers.

She has drawn historic comparisons to Denmark’s Inge Sorensen, who at 12 was the youngest-ever winner of an Olympic swimming medal with bronze on the Berlin Games of 1936.

But not everybody thinks Yu ought to be competing in Singapore.

Some within the sport have raised questions in regards to the psychological and bodily impacts of high-level coaching and competing at an age when she remains to be creating as an individual.

Under present World Aquatics guidelines, the minimal age is 14 however youthful swimmers can compete on the championships if — like Yu — they’re quick sufficient.