China’s swim star, Yu Zidi, 13: Are child athletes ethical?

The third Asian Games gold medal looked as convincing as the first two, even if Yu Zidi insisted that: “It didn’t feel easy at all. It was quite challenging.”

On Wednesday, the 13-year-old Chinese swimmer broke the Games record for the third time to add the women’s 400 meter individual medley title to her golds in the 200 meter medley and 200 meter butterfly. The three medals add to a bronze she won last year at the World Championships.

Even two years out from the Los Angeles Olympics, talk is turning to a potential rivalry with Canada’s Summer McIntosh, 20, who herself finished fourth in the 2020 Olympics at 14 and won a world title at 15. As well as their remarkable talent, the pair’s youth has raised some questions.

“The first reaction you have when you see something like this is you think, wow, there’s a big career ahead,” three-time open water swimming world champion Leonie Beck, of Germany, told DW.

“But I think maybe this is the problem. People around [the athlete], or maybe the media can create this pressure on a young talent. But just because you’re really good and fast at this age, doesn’t mean that your whole career will continue like this.”

Early success is not always sustained

Beck has already retired from elite competition at 29 and swimming is a sport where athletes often peak early. Katie Ledecky, of the US, and Japan’s Kyoko Iwasaki both won Olympic gold at 15 and Japan’s Yumeki Kojima, 17, has been a home favorite at the Asian Games, winning a gold and silver in the pool.

While the temptation is to think of Yu as a prodigy, Beck said that to reach the level she has also requires extraordinary dedication and sacrifice.

“My first international competition was in 2011 [at age 14]. At that stage already, I was training eight times a week. You wake up at 5 a.m., by 6 you’re in the pool, out at 7:30 so you’re in school at 8:00, school until 1, going home, eating, maybe doing some homework, going back in the water training at 3. Then one hour of dry land [training], then in the water again and coming back home at 7 (p.m.). I had this when I was young too.”

Yu, who was discovered by chance by a swimming coach at a water park aged 6, admitted in an interview with state media Xinhua at an event in China in January that the workload takes its toll.

“Being in class all day and still having to train was really tiring,” she said. “Sometimes I was so tired I could fall asleep even while eating.”

While, for Beck, the sporting success made such struggles worthwhile, not all athletes who dedicate their childhoods to their sport reach the pinnacle. The German swimmer added that putting educational, physical and mental support structures in place is critical for sports that allow under-18s to compete.

“Sport psychology should start at a really young age because it should be normal, the same as physiotherapists,” she said. “Especially at a young age, where sport should be also fun.”

World Aquatics rules state that the minimum age for international championships is 14 but exceptions can be made for those fast enough, like Yu. While swimmers peak earlier than athletes in other sports, teenagers at the top level are not so unusual.

In football, Lamine Yamal won the Euros with Spain at 16, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, of India, made his debut in cricket’s Indian Premier League at 13 and Nadia Comaneci, of Romania, became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect 10 in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal aged 14.

Neither are young athletes a modern phenomenon. Dimitrios Loundras remains the youngest ever Olympic medallist, winning a bronze with the Greek gymnastics team in 1896.

While support structures in sport are improving, challenges remain, according to Rosemary Purcell, who played a part in the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) review into youth development ahead of the Paris Olympics in 2024.

“There are pretty stark differences between what we see in the community and in these elite youth athletes,” Purcell told DW during those Games.

 “Some sports do have a higher rate of eating disorders and body image disturbance in young athletes, but conversely, they may have lower rates of depression and anxiety than we would see in the community.”

If you’re good enough, you’re old enough?

In general, sporting bodies tend to take the approach that if an athlete is good enough, they are old enough. Beck said, allied with the right support, this approach is correct.

“Every athlete has completely different development. Why should you take away the success of a young athlete just because she’s young and successful in that age? In my opinion, you should give her the possibility to be successful at that age because maybe, who knows, in a later stage of her career, she will be not that successful. It’s not just a solution to say: ‘look, you’re that age, you’re not able to compete.’”

But she also cautioned that because success won’t always last, young elite sportspeople should be helped to find a plan away from the pitch, pool or mat, something she struggled somewhat with post Paris 2024.

“You have this idea that, ok, I want to reach the Olympic Games, win this medal. So you have a structure of where to go, what to do. And at one point it’s gone and you’re like, ‘ok, but now what am I doing with my life? What do I want to reach? What are my goals?’

“It’s really, really important that people are starting to think that, ‘hey, we are also human beings and you should do something to have a life after the sport because the sport is not endless.’”

Edited by: Chuck Penfold