Qin Haiyang

At his first major international competition, the 2018 Asian Games, he participated in the 4x100 metre medley relay and won gold.

Later in December, he competed in the 2018 World Championships, where he won the silver medal in the 200 metre Breaststroke.

Then, in 2019, he won three silver medals and one bronze at the Military World Games.^[5]

He qualified for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in the 200m breaststroke and finished first in his 200m breaststroke heat, but was disqualified for making an illegal kick after a turn, in what he called a "stupid mistake".^[6]

Since 2022, Qin started to train under Cui Dengrong, who also coached 2020 Olympic Games champion Zhang Yufei. Under Cui's coaching, Qin saw large improvements.^[7]

At the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, Qin became the first man in history to win gold in all three breaststroke events at a single edition of the championship.^[8] With a time of 2:05.48, he broke the world record in 200m breaststroke, which was previously established by 2020 Olympic Games champion Zac Stubblety-Cook in 2022. Qin also set new Asian records in 50m and 100m breaststroke respectively.

In the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games (held in 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), Qin again won all three individual breaststroke events.^[9] He also won the silver medal in the 200m individual medley.^[10] In the men's 4 × 100 m medley relay, the Chinese team of Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang, Wang Changhao, and Pan Zhanle broke the Asian record by finishing in 3:27.01.^[11] This was also the second-fastest in history, just 0.23 behind Team USA's world record time in the 2020 Olympic Games. The Chinese team of Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang, Zhang Yufei, and Yang Junxuan also set the new Asian record in the mixed 4 × 100 m medley relay.^[12] With his teammate Zhang Yufei, Qin Haiyang was named the MVP of 2022 Asian Games for his five gold medals.^[13]

Afterwards, at the 2023 Swimming World Cup, Qin won gold in all three breaststroke events (50m, 100m, and 200m) at all three World Cup legs, held in Berlin, Athens and Budapest. Qin was consequently named as the winner of the World Cup title due to his performances at all three legs.^[14]

While at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Qin Haiyang lamented that;

"The (drug) tests come early in the morning before we’re even awake, during midday rest periods, forcing us to rest on hotel lobby sofas, and even late at night, keeping us up past midnight"^[15]

And after a poor start to Qin's marquee individual breaststroke events where he failed to medal,^[16][17] Qin would later bounce-back to swim the fastest split-times in the finals of his breastroke legs in the team events; 57.82 and 57.98 in the Mixed 4 × 100 m Medley Relay and the Men's 4 × 100 m Medley Relay to secure Silver and Gold medals respectively, and handing the United States swim team its first defeat in the latter-event since it was first-introduced into the Olympic program in the 1960 Rome Olympics.^[18][19][20]

At the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, Qin Haiyang won the gold medal in the 200 m breaststroke, coming from lane eight with a time of 2:07.41. The victory marked his second gold of the championships, following his win in the 100 metre breaststroke and a bronze in the 50 metre breaststroke. His performance in the final was notable as he was the only swimmer to qualify with a time slower than 2:09.00.^[21][22][23]

As of 28 Jul 2023^[24]

Key: NR = National Record; AS = Asian Record; WR = World Record