With a younger generation of talents making their presence felt at Tokyo 2020, China's national swimming program has waved goodbye to its controversial past while ushering in a new dawn full of potential.

Six days into the Olympic meet in Tokyo, a group of youngsters has emerged from the shadow of Sun Yang's four-year ban by winning two gold medals on Thursday at Tokyo Aquatics Center.

Leading the surge was Zhang Yufei, who clocked an Olympic-record 2 minutes 3.86 seconds to win the women's 200-meter butterfly title, well ahead of the United States pair Regan Smith (2:05.30) and Hali Flickinger (2:05.65).

Zhang's immense potential was underlined by the fact that at the age of 23 her winning time is the fastest since compatriot Liu Zige's world record of 2:01.81, which was facilitated by the now-banned sharkskin swimsuit at the 2009 world championships.

Just 80 minutes after her first gold, Zhang suited up for the 4x200m freestyle relay final along with Yang Junxuan, Tang Muhan and Li Bingjie.

To the surprise of the world, the Chinese quartet held off favorites Australia and the United States. Yang's powerful start laid the foundation for victory, with Li's strong final lengths clinching a second gold on a hectic morning in a world-record time of 7:40.33.

The victory made China the only nation after Australia and the US to win gold in the high-profile relay event at the Olympics since its debut at the 1996 Games.

'Surging power'

Waving to the rest of China's cheering swimming squad in the stands, Zhang and her relay teammates wrapped themselves in Chinese flags and beamed with joy during their post-race interviews before embracing on the podium to celebrate their heroic feat.

"To be honest I didn't expect us to win and I felt I was far behind at the 150-meter mark on my leg," said Zhang, who was only told to swim the relay when she was relaxing following her butterfly final.

"I didn't even know how to swim the 200 free, although I have the training qualities and levels for the distance.

"But somehow I felt a surging power coming from the whole nation's support in my final 50 meters, and I pushed harder and never looked back."

With a silver medal from Monday's 100m fly already around her neck, Zhang will go down as one of the breakout stars of Tokyo 2020, and has emerged as a new leader for Team China. Three-time Olympic champion Sun's chances of resurrecting his career appear unlikely after he was banned for over four years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last month for doping-control violations.

As the oldest on China's triumphant relay team, Zhang's individual breakthrough served as strong motivation for her three teammates, who were all born after 2000.

"Her win in butterfly really inspired us to go harder for the relay medal, making us believe that the Chinese can join the battle for gold in this event," said Yang, 19, who finished fourth in Wednesday's 200m free final.

Distance freestyle star Li, who swam the anchor leg for China, echoed those sentiments, saying that the extra strength she drew from Zhang's golden performance helped her hold off a strong charge from American star Katie Ledecky at the end.

"We were inspired by her 200 fly... it made us determined to do our best in the relay. We were all in tears," added Li, also 19, who won her first Olympic medal after finishing third in Monday's 400m free.

Zhang's win is China's third gold in 200m fly at the Olympics since Liu triumphed in the event at Beijing 2008. It is also redemption for her disappointing sixth-place finish at Rio 2016, as well as failures to grab gold at the world championships in 2017 and 2019.

"Now she definitely deserves the title of 'Butterfly Queen'," retired star Jiao Liuyang, the 200m fly gold medalist at London 2012, said during a Tencent program on Thursday.

"She's proved herself by winning Olympic gold at a younger age than we did. She's physically stronger and has her confidence boosted to the next level.

"I think she's well-equipped to spearhead China's charge to the next Olympics in Paris."

Challenges ahead

The outlook for China's men is not so promising, with the program as yet unable to find a reliable successor to the banned Sun.

Declining world champion Xu Jiayu finished fifth in Tuesday's 100m backstroke final.

Xu, a 25-year-old native of Zhejiang province, has been struggling to regain his form due to multiple injuries since winning back-to-back world titles from 2017-19.

As China's only active individual world champion in men's swimming besides freestyle star Sun, Xu managed to recover in time for the Olympics, but the long hiatus from international meets due to the pandemic appeared to take a heavy toll on his consistency in the highly competitive sprint event.

Although touching in his best time of the season (52.21) in the final, it was not enough to fend off tough rivals representing the Russian Olympic Committee, the US and Italy, as Xu failed to follow up his silver-medal performance at the 2016 Rio Games with another podium finish.

"Compared to the women's team, I have a bigger concern for the men because so far we haven't seen any younger swimmers step up and take the baton from the older generation," said Wu Peng, a former 200m butterfly silver medalist at the 2007 worlds.

"With the next Games only three years away, I hope the Chinese men's program can draw inspiration from the women's success in Tokyo to keep nurturing some medal contenders for Paris 2024."

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