Zhang Zhanshuo breaks men's 800m freestyle junior domestic record at 15th National Games

A total of 27 gold medals were awarded at China's 15th National Games on Thursday and five of them came from the swimming events in Shenzhen. Eighteen-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo continued to shine for Shandong as he won the men's 800-meter freestyle final to grab his third gold medal at the Games.

Last year at the same venue, Zhang set the junior domestic record of the event in 7:47.84. He continued his dominance this time by sprinting to the lead in the first 50 meters and then kept extending it before touching the wall first in 7:46.69, improving his record by more than one second.

The silver went to Zhejiang's Fei Liwei and Zhang's teammate Liu Peixin had bronze.

In other events, world champion and Asian record holder Siobhan Haughey topped the podium in the women's 200m freestyle event, securing the first swimming gold medal for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) at this year's National Games.

Silver medalist Li Bingjie of Hebei and bronze medalist Liu Yaxin of Zhejiang completed the podium with Haughey.

The men's 50m breaststroke final saw a twist that changed the final results. Asian Games champion Qin Haiyang finished in third, but was disqualified because he committed a foul when he started. In the end, Hubei's Sun Jiajun earned the bronze. Zheng Yinghao bagged the gold medal for Shanghai and Yan Zibei took silver for Hubei.

Xu Fang added the men's 200m butterfly title for Shandong and Xu Jiayu led Zhejiang to pocket the mixed 4x100m medley relay gold.