China’s swimmers provided another imposing demonstration of their depth of talent by scooping up six gold medals in the pool on Tuesday. Led by London Olympic champions Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen, the Chinese transformed the Munhak Aquatics Centre into their own private pool party, winning all but one of the seven titles decided on the third night of swimming finals.

Sun, who took a day off after being beaten by Kosuke Hagino in the 200 metres freestyle on Sunday and injuring his thumb when he hit the touchpad, was better suited by the longer distance and avenged his loss to the Japanese star when he successfully defended his 400m freestyle title.

Ye turned the women’s 400 individual medley into a virtual time-trial. She steamed clear of the field from the start and was never challenged as she made an audacious attempt to break her own world record. China also provided a sneak preview of their next wave of potential Olympic champions when teenage sensation Shen Duo picked up her third gold medal of the Games while Chen Xinyi, Fu Yuanhui and Ning Zetao all bagged their first.

Biggest upset

But the biggest surprise came from Kazakhstan teenager Dmitry Balandin, the only swimmer to break China’s monopoly on Tuesday. The 19-year-old clocked in two minutes 07.67 seconds to take the gold ahead of Japan’s Kazuki Kohinata and Yashuhiro Koseki.

Ning won the men’s 50m freestyle sprint for China in 21.95, getting his hand on the wall just ahead of the Japanese pair of Shinri Shioura and Kenta Ito.

Ye was under world record pace for the first 250m of the women’s 400m individual medley. She weakened over the concluding freestyle leg and stopped the clock at 4:32.97, more than five seconds ahead of Japan’s Sakiko Shimizu and Vietnam’s 17-year-old Nguyen Thi Anh Vien, who won the gold at the recent Youth Olympics.

Shen picked up her third gold in the women’s 4x200m while 16-year-old Chen won the women’s 100m butterfly in a slick 56.61 and Fu won the women’s 50m backstroke in 27.66.