On day four of the swimming finals at the World Aquatics Championships in Shanghai, Sun Yang had a chance to give China its third swimming gold in the men's 800-meter freestyle.

Experts considered Sun to be China's leading hope in men's swimming. He failed to shine in his opening event, the 400m freestyle. He settled for a silver medal behind archrival Park Tae-hwan of South Korea.

Sun claimed one gold medal and two silver in individual events at the Guangzhou Asian Games, and was in tears at the end of nearly every race. But there were no tears this time. The 19-year-old Sun, won his first world championship title by leading all the way in the 800 freestyle. He clocked 7 minutes, 38.57 seconds.

Canada's Ryan Cochrane stayed close through the first 600m, but he finished with the silver medal in 7:41.86. Gergo Kis of Hungary took the bronze in 7 minutes and 44.94 seconds. That puts China on 13 golds for the championships overall, after scoring 10-out-of-10 in diving.

Sun Yang said, "I'm very happy with today's performance. It's my first gold medal, and it's also my personal best result in the event. I was fully prepared for this 800m event, and I followed my own beat for the whole race."