A 12-year-old Chinese swimmer, Yu Zidi, has won a bronze medal in the World Aquatics Championships, becoming the youngest swimmer to medal in the competition’s history.
She earned bronze as part of China’s 4x200m freestyle relay team, despite not participating in the final behind Australia and the United States. She also participated in the 200m butterfly final on Thursday, securing fourth place.
The United States took silver and Australia won gold. The minimum age to compete in the championships is 14, with exceptions made for younger swimmers whose times meet a certain standard of excellence.
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The last time a 12-year-old medaled at a major international swimming competition was in 1936, when Inge Sorensen of Denmark won bronze in the 200-meter breast stroke at the Olympics, per the BBC.
Yu was just shy of winning an individual medal at the championships, coming in 0.06 seconds behind bronze medalist Mary-Sophie Harvey of Canada in the women’s 200-meter medley final.
Yu’s success at such a young age has sparked some controversy about the impact her training will have. On BBC Radio 5 Live, four-time world champion swimmer Karen Pickering called her success “astonishing” but expressed concern for how hard the girl is training.
“To see a youngster go in the events she is doing is on the one hand astonishing, but it does slightly raise the question of how long has she been training hard?” Pickering said.
