Swimming - Team China

General
In the six Games since the women's 4x200m freestyle relay was first included on the Olympic programme, the People's Republic of China have won two silver medals in the event, which they achieved at back-to-back Games in 2004 and 2008.

At the 2000 Games, they missed qualification for the final by just under three-tenths of a second, but four years later they produced a huge improvement to claim their first medal in the event when they finished second behind a world record-setting United States of America team. In 2008 as hosts of the Beijing Games, they claimed silver behind Australia in a fast race where the top four teams all swam under the previous world record time. Most recently, at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, they missed the podium by one place, finishing 2.57s behind the bronze medal-winning team from Canada.

The Chinese team have twice been world champions in the event. Both successes came in Rome, at the 1994 and 2009 championships. They won the 2009 world title in a world record time that would stand for the next 10 years, until it was broken by Australia at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, where the Chinese team finished fourth behind Canada again.