Chinese freestyle swimmer Pan Zhanle is speaking up after winning gold at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
The 19-year-old athlete broke his own world record for the 100 metre freestyle by completing the event in 46.40 seconds. His previous best was 46.80 seconds. Soon after the record-breaking win, Brett Hawke, an elite swimming coach and former competitive swimmer, called Pan’s victory into question on Instagram via posts and stories.
In one video, in which he reacted to the 100 metre event, Hawke said, “I can’t help but have questions, especially with the history and everything that’s going on, like you put a full second on a field like that.” Earlier this year, a New York Times investigation revealed that 23 Chinese swimmers competing at the Tokyo Games had not passed a drugs test but were still allowed to compete.
In another video, Hawke said he’s “angry at that swim.” He captioned the video: “That swim was not real life. Not in that pool, not against that field.”
Many netizens, however, feel very differently and are coming to Pan’s defense.
Now Pan is slamming his rivals for disrespecting him and his team, particularly Australia’s Kyle Chalmers, who won the silver medal, and USA’s Jack Alexey, who came in seventh place.
On the first day, during the 4×100m relay, I greeted Chalmers, but he completely ignored me, and even Alexey from the American team was dismissive. During training, when our coach was on the side, they would splash water directly on him with their flips, which felt quite disrespectful.
Today, we finally defeated all of them and broke the world record in such a challenging pool. It was an excellent performance and a great start for the Chinese team.
— Pan Zhanle
In addition to speaking out about other Olympians’ behavior toward him, Pan also pushed back at doping allegations. He said, “Last year, I was tested 29 times, and not a single one was positive. This year between May and July, I was tested 21 times, also none came out positive. I was tested twice at the Olympics; we can look forward to the results.”
