Chinese swimmer Sun Yiting broke the 400m women’s immersion world record at the 2017 Spring National Finswimming Championship in Jiangle county, Fujian province, on April 19.

Sun Yiting bites on her gold medal after winning the 400 meters women’s immersion final at the 2017 Spring National Finswimming Championship, held in Jiangle county, Fujian province, April 15 – 20. [Photo by Peng Zhangqing/Xinhua]

Finswimming is an alternative form of swimming where competitors wear fins, either a traditional pair of flippers or a mermaid-like monofin. There are events for surface and underwater swimming in both swimming pools and in open water.

China officially introduced the sport in 1959, soon after the Soviet Union held the first ever finswimming meets, and the country continues to be one of the strongholds of the sport worldwide.

This was underlined at the championships in Fujian as Sun won the 400 meters women’s immersion final with a time of 2 minutes and 55.83 seconds, more than a second faster than the previous world record and over a minute faster than Katie Ledecky’s 400m freestyle world record.

Swimmers compete in the 400 meters women’s immersion final at the 2017 Spring National Finswimming Championship on April 19. Sun broke the world record in the race with a time of 2 minutes and 55.83 seconds. [Photo by Peng Zhangqing/Xinhua]

Sun is one of China’s top finswimmers. Born in 1994, in the northeastern Liaoning province, she is also a former world champion, winning gold in the 400m women’s surface at the CMAS Finswimming World Championship in Yantai, Shandong province, in 2015.

Around 100 finswimmers from across China competed in the 2017 Spring National Championship in 32 different events.