Sun Yang showed up as promised in 400m freestyle heats on Tuesday morning and managed to enter the final with the top result of three minutes and 51.17 seconds at Munhak Park Tae-hwan Aquatic Center.

Sun was in lane 4 of the third heat. Beside him in the lane 5 was Park Tae-hwan, the Marine Boy of South Korea, after whom the swimming venue was named.

Sun was in the lead from the very beginning and managed to expand his advantage over Park and reach home first.

Park said that he wanted to have a better performance in the evening final.

Kosuke Hagino, who defeated Sun and Park to take the gold medal in 200m freestyle, was in the second heat. He ranked second in preliminary with a result of three minutes and 52.24 seconds. Park was in the third place with a result 2.63 seconds behind Sun's and 1.07 seconds behind Hagino.

"I wasn't thinking about gold medal. I just wanted to do my best and improve my personal record," Hagino said. "It's an honor to compete with Sun and Park once again. I'm looking forward to it."

There had been speculations that Sun might withdraw from the Asian Games after he lost to Kosuke Hagino of Japan and hurt his left thumb in Sunday's 200m freestyle.

His coach then confirmed on Monday that Sun will remain in individual events including 400m freestyle on Tuesday and 1,500m freestyle on Friday, the last day of swimming competition.

Meanwhile, younger Chinese swimmers are catching up. Ning Zetao ranked first in men's 50m freestyle. He and teammate Yu Hexin will stage a showdown with Shinri Shioura and Kenta Ito of Japan.

Talking about his biggest rival Shinri Shioura of Japan, the current Asian record holder, Ning said "I raced him last year in January but no matter who the competitor is, I just focus on what I have to do."

"I'll aim to set a new Games record again in the finals and take the gold medal," said Ning, who broke the Asian Games record in the heat.

The Chinese girls were more at ease on Tuesday, leading in all three women's events, namely 50m backstroke, 400m individual medley and 100m butterfly. Olympic champion Ye Shiwen had a comfortable advantage over other swimmers in 400m individual medley.

"I want my title and to do better than I did in the Chinese nationals in April. I was tired after the relay two days ago but I'm doing a bit better today," Ye said.

The Chinese women swimmers are expected to shine in all three individual events and the 4x200m freestyle relay in the evening finals.