Only a year and a half has lasted for the absolute monarch of speed David Popovici his majestic world record of the 100 meters freestyle, achieved at the European Championships in Rome 2022. The Chinese Zhanle Pan, who until now had the fifth best mark of history (46s97), surprised the aquatic planet at the Aspire Dome in Doha by snatching the world record for the hectometer, the reigning distance of speed, by just 6 hundredths.
The curious thing about the Chinese dragon’s blow was that he achieved his world record in an impressive first leg of the final of the 4×100 freestyle relay, covered in 46s80, which served to put the eastern quartet in the lead. [In a relay, a record can only be set in a first relay.]
China, which had been fourth in the 2023 final, this time in the absence of the powerful Australian team, swept its two main opponents, Italy and the United States, silver and bronze, as they already were, alternately, in the past Fukuoka World Cup. Spain repeated in 8th place.
Without the popularity and charisma of his contemporary rival David Popovici (both born in 2004), Pan is the most serious and worrying threat that the Romanian swimmer – absent in Doha to prepare for the Olympic event – ??will have in the next Paris Games.
At 19 years old (the Chinese, from August 4, is 42 days older than Popovici), Pan has long been issuing warning messages to his hectometer rivals and especially to Popovici: in the previous World Cup in Fukuoka he was already 4 .º with 47s43 and an Asian record (the gold went to the Australian Kyle Chalmers, also absent in Qatar), and at the Asian Games last September he scored a brutal 46s97, which was the aforementioned fifth best mark in history, for behind Caeleb Dressel, and made him the first Asian swimmer to break the 47s barrier, and the second in history to surpass César Cielo’s historic 46s91: only Pan and Popovici, two swimmers condemned to compete.
Four and a half months later, in Doha, the Chinese marveled with a sensational start with the best reaction time (0s62) in which he left the Italian Alessandro Miressi behind. He did the first 50 in 22.26, the turn was fleeting and he flew into the second pool to set the colossal 46.80 record. Popovici’s record was going into the trash can of history. His teammates Xinjie Ji, Zhanshuo Zhang and Haoyu Wang finished off the gold for China, which left Italy 1s behind and the United States 1s21s behind.
Zhanle Pan’s face upon receiving the check for $30,000 for achieving the world record was the image of the purest and most naive amazement, much more expressive than that of the achievement of the new record.
The emergence of Pan, with the return of Popovici, Chalmers, the American Jack Alexy or the Frenchman Maxime Grousset – the Fukuoka podium – promises an exciting event at the Paris Games.
