Liu Xiang (, born 1 September 1996) is a Chinese competitive swimmer.

Early life

Born Liu Jiaxin in

Tianhe District Tianhe District () is one of the eleven districts of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province. In Chinese, the name Tianhe literally means "River of Heaven", which is also a Chinese name for the Milky Way. It is bordered by Yuexiu District ...

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

, she is the only daughter to her parents. Both of her parents were basketball players, but she chose swimming. Liu is an alumnus of

South China Normal University South China Normal University (SCNU) is a Types of universities and colleges in China, provincial public normal university in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. It is affiliated with the Province of Guangdong, and co-sponsored by the provincial gover ...

Swimming

At the

2015 World Aquatics Championships The 16th FINA World Aquatics Championships, FINA World Championships (), also Aquatics 2015, were held in Kazan, Russia from 24 July to 9 August 2015. Russia hosted this event for the first time. The number of participating national teams (190), ...

, Liu won the bronze medal in the 50-meter backstroke behind teammate Fu Yuanhui at the

in Kazan, Russia. She also competed at the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

. In the

2018 Asian Games The 2018 Asian Games ( or ''Asian Games 2018''), officially known as the 18th Asian Games (), and also known as Jakarta-Palembang 2018 or Indonesia 2018, were a Asia, continental multi-sport event that was held from 18 August to 2 September 201 ...

Liu broke the 27-second barrier in the women's 50m backstroke as she set a world record and took the gold medal.

Personal bests

Long course (50-meter pool)

Short course (25-meter pool)

Key: NR = National Record, AS = Asian Record, WR = World Record

References

1996 births Living people Olympic swimmers for China Chinese female backstroke swimmers Chinese female freestyle swimmers Swimmers at the 2016 Summer Olympics World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming Swimmers at the 2018 Asian Games Asian Games medalists in swimming Swimmers from Guangzhou World record holders in swimming Asian Games gold medalists for China Asian Games silver medalists for China Medalists at the 2018 Asian Games 21st-century Chinese sportswomen {{PRChina-swimming-bio-stub