NAGOYA, Japan, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) — Records have tumbled and new stars have emerged on the 2026 Asian Games, the place a technology of younger athletes has made its mark throughout sports activities starting from swimming and athletics to skateboarding and esports.
Of China’s 815 athletes, 548 are making their Asian Games debuts, whereas almost a 3rd had been born in 2005 or later. The youngest is 12-year-old skateboarder Cao Shiqi.
Cao completed fourth within the ladies’s park last, simply 1.63 factors shy of the rostrum. The tears she shed afterward, her coach mentioned, would solely sharpen a expertise whose composure belies her age.
In the pool, 19-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo emerged as one of many Games’ greatest stars, successful seven gold medals from eight occasions to equal the file for probably the most titles by an athlete at a single Asian Games.
Zhang swept the lads’s 200m, 400m, 800m and 1,500m freestyle titles, breaking the Asian file within the 200m and Games data within the 400m and 800m. He added three relay golds, serving to China set Asian data within the males’s 4x200m and 4x100m freestyle relays.
Zhang was not the one teenager making waves on the Tokyo Aquatics Center.
Yu Zidi, 13, gained three particular person titles in 4 days. Victory within the ladies’s 200m butterfly made her the youngest swimming gold medalist in Asian Games historical past earlier than she broke the Asian file within the 200m particular person medley and the Games file within the 400m particular person medley.
On the observe, Chen Yujie collected three golds and a silver on her Asian Games debut.
The Chinese sprinter gained the ladies’s 100m in a Games-record time, reducing the earlier mark by 0.09 seconds. After taking silver within the 200m, she anchored China to victory within the ladies’s 4x100m relay earlier than producing a late surge to safe gold within the combined 4x100m a day later.
Yan Ziyi wanted just one throw to make her mark. The 18-year-old gained the ladies’s javelin with a gap effort of 70.46 meters, breaking the Games file by 4.37 meters and beating Japan’s Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi.
But the emergence of a brand new technology has stretched properly past China.
Japan’s 17-year-old Shin Ohashi smashed the lads’s 200m breaststroke world file with a time of two:04.83 and shared the 100m title with China’s Dong Zhihao.
In esports, 11-year-old Yuki Kurihara of Japan defeated South Korea’s Kang Dong-shin 10-2 within the Puyo Puyo Champions last to develop into the youngest gold medalist in Asian Games historical past.
Chinese Taipei’s Ku Yong-yan, 12, took silver within the males’s skateboarding park with 87.33 factors, ending behind Japan’s Izuru Nagahara.
Other delegations additionally discovered younger athletes breaking new floor.
Thailand’s Puripol Boonson, 20, accomplished the lads’s dash double, successful the 100m in a Games-record 9.90 seconds earlier than clocking 19.88 within the 200m to equal the Asian file held by China’s Xie Zhenye.
South Korea’s Kang Jun-i gained the lads’s avenue skateboarding title at 17, delivering his nation’s first Asian Games gold within the sport.
His compatriot Hwang Seo-hyun, 16, additionally made historical past, successful the ladies’s steadiness beam to offer South Korea its first Asian Games title within the occasion in 40 years.