Kyle Chalmers’ freestyle rival Pan Zhanle has produced an explosive final act at the Olympics, swimming the fastest 100m freestyle split in history to secure a come-from-behind 4x100m medley relay gold medal for China.
Pan entered the final men’s race of the swimming program on a high after winning individual 100m freestyle gold with a new world-record time of 46.40 seconds, finishing 1.08 seconds clear of Australia’s silver medallist Chalmers.
And the Chinese star repeated the dose in the relay — on his 20th birthday — when he put down an extraordinary 45.92 time in the anchor leg to lift his team onto the top step of the podium.
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Pan’s effort, again more than a second quicker than Chalmers and the rest of the field, surpassed the previous all-time best split of 46.06 set by American Jason Lezak at Beijing 2008.
“My teammates aren’t very happy about today’s performance. But it’s over, and we’re the champions,” Pan has been quoted as saying after the relay gold, before sending a clear message to his competition.
“So if there is anyone who is not happy, it’s supposed to be other teams.”
Indeed, Great Britain’s Adam Peaty was frustrated — albeit not with Pan — after falling short of the medals in fourth.
Peaty was quick to question the legitimacy of China’s victory over the presence of his breaststroke rival Qin Haiyang in the team, saying he “should be out of the sport”.
China led the race at the halfway mark through Xu Jiayu and Qin but fell back to third after Sun Jiajun’s third leg.
The United States were in the mix for a medal for much of the race and secured silver, while France finished close behind in bronze despite leading with 100m and 50m to go.
Australia finished sixth with the quartet of Isaac Cooper, Joshua Yong, Matt Temple and Chalmers always trailing in the mid-pack.
China’s swimming team entered the Olympics under a cloud of doping concerns, with Qin and Sun among 23 who tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine prior to Tokyo three years ago.
They were cleared to compete on the basis of a finding they had unknowingly ingested the drug via contaminated food, and have been tested regularly before and during this year’s Olympics under the increased scrutiny.
Notably, Pan was not among the 23 and has been celebrated throughout the Olympics, including by Chalmers after a bemusing fallout to their 100m freestyle showdown.
But the doping issue clouded the build-up to Paris 2024 when several stars including Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel, who battled Sun in the third leg of the medley relay, expressed their misgivings.
Peaty joined that clamour on the final night of action in the pool, singling out Qin for criticism.
Peaty seemed to reference a New York Times allegation that Qin returned a positive test for a different performance-enhancing drug in 2017 — which was blamed on food contamination at the time — as a reason that he should no longer be allowed to compete.
“For me, if you’ve been on that and you have been ‘contaminated’ twice, I think as an honourable person you should be out of the sport,” Peaty said.
“I don’t want to paint a whole nation or group of people with one brush, I think that’s very unfair. But there have been two cases of it and it’s very disappointing.
“The Americans have been very vocal. We didn’t want to get distracted with that. What I’ve said from the start is that it’s fraud. If you’re cheating, it’s fraud.”
Peaty finished five places ahead of Qin in the 100m breaststroke final when the Briton’s bid for three straight gold medals fell short by 0.02 seconds as Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi won gold.
Peaty later found out he had COVID-19.
While he took aim at Qin, Peaty also openly declared doping authorities needed to “wake up and do your job”.
“I think we have to have faith in the system. But we also don’t. I think it’s got to be stricter,” he said.
Ahead of Paris, Ledecky said swimmers wanted to see change and openness from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
“They want transparency, they want further answers to the questions that still remain,” she said.
“We’re not the ones paid to do the testing. So we hope that the people that are following their own rules and that applies now and into the future.
“We want to see some change for the future so that you don’t have to ask us that question.”
Australian Olympic Committee president Ian Chesterman said he was comfortable with the outcome of the probe into the 23 Chinese swimmers.
“The athletes need to have confidence in the system so I think it was really important that that independent review took place,” Chesterman said.
“The independent review took place by a very senior person, they had access to the facts … we need to accept that and we need to now move on.”
Pan Zhanle records set stage for monster challenge
Speaking after Pan caused a stir following the 100m freestyle final, Chalmers said the pair had cleared the air — despite not speaking the same language.
Pan told Chinese reporters he had been snubbed by Chalmers in Paris, with the Australian then receiving “a huge amount of grief (on social media) which is obviously very challenging to deal with mentally”.
The swimmers later exchanged text messages and conversed in the warm-up pool.
Pan has offered to show Chalmers around Shanghai when they swim at a World Cup meet in the Chinese city next year.
“I don’t think there was any animosity ever,” Chalmers said on Saturday.
“From my point of view, I spoke to him in the marshalling room before the race.
“After the race, I went straight over, shook his hand in the pool; on the podium, shook his hand.
“And then we had a great conversation before we started that cool down, just in regards to how great the race was and the Shanghai world cup.
“And again, he just said about me being his idol and how much of an honour it was for him to swim against me and he never thought that was possible.
“All of our conversations we’ve ever had have been positive, from the world championships last year through this year.”
Chalmers said he was eager to extend his rivalry with Pan.
“I know that I have done everything I possibly can to be respectful, like I am to every one of my competitors and I have been over the years,” he said.
“I have had some amazing relationships with guys that I’ve raced against and race with, and I think this will be no different.
“I really look forward to progressing our relationship and challenging each other and having some amazing battles in the pool over the years. It’s one-all now.
“Last year we raced at the world championships and I got the better of him but this year he got the better of me.
“So I look forward to taking it to round three next year.”
Chalmers said the past few days had been “a bit of a whirlwind”.
“It’s very hard, we both obviously don’t speak the same language … so it’s quite hard to talk,” he said.
“But again, from my point of view, I don’t have any issues.
“His race was amazing the other night. And I’m honoured to be in the fastest race that has ever been swum in the 100 freestyle in history, it’s an incredible feat.”
– with AAP