by sportswriters Cao Yibo, Wang Qinou, Yang Fan
NAGOYA, Japan, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Two days before her first race at the 2026 Asian Games, 17-year-old Chinese sprinter Chen Yujie slept until almost noon.
It was hardly the image of a title contender on the eve of competition, but little about Chen fits the mold.
As athletics wrapped up Tuesday in Nagoya, Japan, Chen walked away with a Games record in the 100m, a silver in the 200m, and golds in the 4x100m women's and mixed relay, four medals from her Asiad debut.
Along the way, Chen showed fans a high school student who is just as comfortable joking about her cat as she is chasing sprint records.
A "NERVOUS" ROAD TO GOLD
Chen had been too young to compete at the Hangzhou Asian Games three years ago. Instead, she carried the torch for one leg of its journey through her hometown, Ningbo in Zhejiang province.
This time, she arrived in Nagoya as one of the favorites, fresh off a national championship win in 11.08 seconds in August that broke the Asian junior record and stood as the world's best mark of the season.
"This time I'm here as an athlete, and I want to approach it with a learning mindset," she said. "I'll treat the veterans on the track, whether from China or other teams, as people to chase and learn from."
As for whether she was a favorite, she added: "I won't pay attention to what people say. Let the result speak for itself."
Chen won her 100m qualifying heat in 11.41 seconds, technically sound but, by her own admission, short of her best after steering clear of a lane-drifting habit she'd spotted in Singapore's Shanti Pereira.
The semifinal proved more nerve-wracking; Chen matched that time but nearly missed a rival closing from the left while tracking another to her right. "I was so scared!" she told Xinhua after the race.
That tension gave way to a viral moment back home: a video of Chen napping under a small blanket at the training track, which fans took as proof of a generation confident enough to nap its way through Games-eve nerves.
Speaking to Xinhua on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival, she admitted the days before the final had felt strangely calm. "I've actually felt pretty normal, even calm, calmer than at domestic meets," she said, joking that she may have gotten so nervous she came out the other side of it.
"Before the race, my parents told me to relax," she said. "If I run well tomorrow, I'll celebrate the festival when I get home. If not, well, we'll still celebrate."
She did run well. In the women's 100m final on September 25, Chen led from the gun and crossed the line in 11.06 seconds, a Games record 0.09 seconds faster than the previous mark, set in 2002. The win kept the Asian Games title in China's hands, three years after Ge Manqi's victory in Hangzhou.
Wrapped in the Chinese flag, Chen shouted to the cameras: "Mom, Dad, I made it!"
"I've gone from being a challenger to a defending champion, and holding on to that title won't be easy," Chen said. "I want to keep a challenger's mindset and set my sights on the World Championships and the Olympics. I hope women's sprinters from China and across Asia can do even better on those stages."
SILVER, EXHAUSTION, GOLDS
Two days later, Chen returned for the 200m final and ran into Pereira again, this time with the title on the line. The Singaporean defended her crown in 22.78 seconds, with Chen taking silver in 22.93.
"Coming off the bend, I glanced over at her, and that probably cost me a little focus, because I really wanted to stay with her," Chen said. "My bend running has always been one of my weaker points in Asia. I honestly didn't expect to keep pace with her through the turn, but doing that used up the energy I needed for the finish."
Chen had nothing but respect for the winner: "She defended her Asian Games title, and I think that makes her a rival truly worth respecting."
There was little time to dwell on it. With the relay heats looming that same night, exhausted Chen made the call to sit out the first round.
"Today's race really took a lot out of me," she said. "I'm not racing the relay heat tonight; I'm genuinely worn out. But I know the responsibility is on my shoulders, and whatever happens, I'll do my part and give what I have to give."
Three days later, she delivered on that promise, anchoring China's women's 4x100m relay team to gold in 42.96 seconds alongside veteran Liang Xiaojing and Asian Games newcomers Liu Guoyi and Liu Xiajun.
It was Chen's third medal of the Games.
"These past three years of building chemistry as a team, everyone out there was fighting for that shared title, that gold medal," Chen said. "That sense of unity is what let me run the anchor leg without too much pressure, and just settle into the race."
On Tuesday, Chen closed out her Games with a fourth medal, anchoring China to mixed 4x100m relay gold despite taking the baton in second place.
"What I achieved at the Games is a real motivator," Chen said. "Now that it's done, I can already start looking ahead to the next one."
THE "KID SISTER" WITH HER SIGHTS ON THE WORLD
Off the track, Chen has become known in China for an unfiltered honesty rare among athletes her age. She talks openly about her parents watching from home and her mischievous cat chasing her around the house, which is why fans call her "kid sister."
Asked how she feels about her nickname, "kid sister," she brushed off any sense of being singled out: "People like me enough to give me a cute name like that. But as China keeps growing stronger, you're going to see more 'kid sisters' and 'kid brothers' show up in every field. I'm not the only one."
"I don't really feel like a star, I'm just a girl," she added.
Competing abroad taught her the gap between reading about the world and standing in it. She landed once in Lima, Peru, introduced in books as a rainless city, only to find it raining. "If you only read about things in books, what you understand is one-sided," she said. "You have to go there yourself and feel what it's really like."
It is also why, for all the records already behind her, Chen keeps talking about the ones still ahead.
She has said many times that winning national titles in China carry little weight on the world stage, where the real contenders run in the 10-second range.
"I don't need to break 11 seconds by some specific date," she said earlier this year about the milestone every Chinese sprint fan is waiting for. "If I treat it as a target I must hit, and then don't hit it, my whole rhythm gets thrown off. What matters more is doing every step right in training, and 11 seconds might just take care of itself."
Asked what winning golds in Nagoya meant to her, Chen, who turns 18 in December, called it the best gift she could give herself heading into adulthood, and a beginning, not an end.
"I want to set my sights on the world stage," she said, "and help Chinese and Asian women's sprinting achieve even more there." ■
