BUDAPEST, July 25 -- A small winning margin of four hundredths of a second for Xu Jiayu proved a big step forward for Chinese swimming at the FINA World Championships here on Tuesday.

Wearing a smile while clinching the gold medal in the men's 100m backstroke, a first for Chinese male swimmers at any world championships, Xu could not hold back his tears after the award ceremony.

Looking back over the past four years, Xu had very reason to express his feelings in such an emotional way.

"At first, I felt happy because I won, but moments later, I realized all the pain I suffered to get to this gold medal," he said.

Getting 10th position in 2013, then 4th place in 2017, and now holding a history-making gold medal in Budapest, the phrase "no pain, no gain" indeed signifies Xu's progress over the past four years.

Exhaustion and vomit were no strangers to Xu during his training. Fortunately, all that pain has now paid off.

"I trained every day ahead of the competition, and never had the chance to feel overly relaxed. All of the training seemed to be at the same level of difficulty, so I cannot figure out which part was the hardest one," he said.

It was not the first time for Xu to get emotional; he also cried after renewing his personal best to claim a silver medal in the Rio Olympic Games last year.

"Two years without any improvement, now I can finally make it," he said.

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