Olympic champion Ye dominates women's 200m individual medley

QINGDAO, China, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Olympic champion Ye Shiwen won the gold medal of the women's 200m individual medley with ease in two minutes and 9.24 seconds at the National Swimming championships here on Monday evening.

It was Ye's first title after she came back to the pool last November, as the two-time Olympic champion spent two years to study in Tsinghua University.

"The result is not what I expected as I only hoped to swim faster," Ye said. "I've got a cold and couldn't swim perfectly in the last 50 meters."

Chen Xinyi from Shanghai and Yu Yiting from Zhejiang placed the second and third respectively.

National record holder Yan Zibei collected the gold medal of the men's 100m breaststroke in 59.52 seconds, as Wang Lizhuo from Heilongjiang followed up in 59.75 seconds and Qin Haiyang took the bronze medal.

Zhang Yufei, the bronze medalist of the World championships, claimed the women's 100m butterfly title in 57.69 seconds.

Wang Yichun from Shandong finished second while Zhu Jiaming from Fujian was third.

Olympic champion Sun Yang led the men's 200m freestyle in preliminaries in 1:47.06.

About 900 swimmers from 25 teams are competing at the meet from March 24 to 31 in order to qualify for the 2019 FINA Swimming World championships in South Korea.