Inspired by golden results at the Olympics, swimming is gaining momentum in China as a mainstream competitive sport as well as a popular exercise appealing to the public.

Chinese swimmers' triumph at the Rio Olympics on Monday, highlighted by men's freestyle specialist Sun Yang's 200m gold medal, has underlined the country's ascent to the elite echelon of the sport and ignited enthusiasm on social media in China.

After finishing his strongest event, the 400m, as runner-up on Saturday, Sun secured China's first swimming title in Rio by clocking 1 min 44.64 sec in the 200m final, 0.55 sec ahead of South Africa's Chad le Clos and 0.58 sec ahead of Conor Dwyer of the United States.

Chinese swimmers Fu Yuanhui and Xu Jiayu followed up, with Fu winning a bronze in the women's 100m backstroke and Xu a silver in the men's 100m backstroke. This helped put China in fourth place after the United States, Australia and Hungary in the medal tally for swimming.

Although China faces a tall order to repeat its five-gold feat in swimming at the 2012 London Olympics, the country's sound progress in swimming, driven by a combination of Chinese and Western training expertise, has lifted the spirit of fans back home.

On China's major micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo, the news hashtag #Chinese swimming dream team# attracted 170 million viewers and 145,000 comments within three hours of Sun's 200m win.

As China's most decorated swimmer at the Olympics, Sun, who also won the 400m and 1,500m freestyles in London, envisions that the Chinese team will become a force to be reckoned with at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

"We are making progress. More and more younger swimmers have emerged with the competence for medals," said the 24-year-old swimmer.

Sun also specifically thanked Australian coach Denis Cotterell after his 200m victory, attributing his progress to overseas training at Cotterell's club in Queensland before the London Games.

Xu Qi, leader of the Chinese swimming squad said, "The help from the West matters a lot in exposing our athletes to advanced training methods and foreign environments that will make them more relaxed to compete."

With Chinese athletes making a golden splash at the Olympics, more people in the nation's cities are making their way to pools for fun and exercise.

During a Public Swimming Week promotion in July, organized by the Chinese Swimming Association, more than a million people participated in a variety of swimming exercises in indoor and outdoor pools, as well as in open water, from July 16 to 24 in 30 provinces and autonomous regions.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/10/2016 page1)