Ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Legend Qin Haiyang Swimming With ’20 KG Weighted Vest With Paddles & Fins’ Goes Viral

The 2023 World Aquatics Championships concluded with a bang. Several swimming legends emerged at the July Championships. But some made it look like it was their last mark-making event. Among them, a 24-year-old Chinese swimmer had come fresh off his 2018 World Championships 200m breaststroke silver memories. That too, for defending another breaststroke title.

At the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games earlier in 2023, Qin Haiyang had set a new games record, finishing with a time of 57.76. Further on, two more golds in the 4 × 100m medley relay, and the men’s 4 × 100m medley relay came under his name. Though being an Asian swimmer seemed difficult at first, he finally set a standard for all the other athletes to match. But when he received a shout-out for a unique factor, fans gazed in awe.

Swimming analyst accolades Qin Haiyang

Kyle Sockwell, a swimming play-by-play commentator and analyst, shared a post that stands as a testament to Haiyang’s high-end maneuvre. Captioning the post as, “The fastest breaststroker on earth is doing dolphin kick breaststroke in 20 kg weighted vest with Paddles & Fins…”, the enthusiast offered a snippet of how the “most valuable player” of the 2022 Asian Games had defended his breaststroke title, that too with additional weights. Paddles and fins, the most popular gears for propelling performance, were the stars of Haiyang’s show. But his 20kg weighted vest had the maximum number of people chanting his name on the display.

At the World Aquatics Championships, the legend had touched the gold at two minutes, 05.48 seconds. The 200m victory came after he clinched the 50m and 100m breaststroke golds as well. With this, he became the sole swimmer in history to have won all three events in a single championship edition. Alongside his strongest woman counterpart, Haiyang had recently claimed a throne that most dream of.

Haiyang wins MVP awards with Zhang Yufei

After six golds and five golds in the pool respectively, Yufei and Haiyang stood on the stage, making their nation proud. Writing the newest Asian Games record, winning one relay and four individual events, made her say, “It has been a milestone year for me. Hangzhou will leave a deep mark in my memory”.

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October 7, 2023, was also a notable year for the  2023 World Aquatics’ Male Swimmer of the Year. After receiving the MVP award, he said, “It was not in my plans to win the award. I came into this year just wanting to make breakthroughs. I want to achieve newer heights in Paris.” He, who has outclassed Great Britain’s Adam Peaty in a Swimming World Cup event, has his sight set on nothing but the Olympic Games later in 2024.

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