China's Olympic champion Zhang Yufei won the women's freestyle 50m final, clocking 24.58 seconds at China's National Swimming Championships on Monday, followed by Yang Junxuan and Cheng Yujie.

Zhang had pocketed a gold and a silver a day before but was not satisfied with her performance.

"I thought I could finish around 24.40 seconds but fell short, I guess," she said.

Zhang, known as the "butterfly queen" in China, also holds the national women's 100m freestyle record.

She won six gold medals at the Hangzhou Asian Games, including a title in the women's 50m freestyle event, where she clocked 24.26 seconds to claim the MVP title with fellow swimmer Qin Haiyang. She then went on to win the women's 100m and 200m butterfly events during the swimming World Cup in Berlin, Athens and Budapest in a tightly scheduled October and took home silver medals in the 50m events across the series.

Also on Monday, world champion Xu Jiayu won the men's 100m backstroke title in 52.61 seconds. Yang Chang won the women's 100m breaststroke in 1:06.38, with London Olympic champion Ye Shiwen ranking third. Hangzhou Asiad champion Peng Xuwei won the women's 100m backstroke in 59.83 seconds. Ji Xinjie won the men's 200m freestyle gold. In the men's 4x100m medley relay, Xu, Qin, Pan Zhanle, and Wang Changhao claimed the title.

The 2023 Chinese Swimming Championships runs from December 10 to 15 in Jinan, the capital of east China's Shandong Province.