With a doping scandal involving Chinese swimmers fresh in the minds of everyone connected to the Olympics, accusations flew after a 19-year-old Chinese swimmer set a world record in the 100-meter freestyle.
Pan Zhanle, 19, broke his existing world record by .4 of a second and finished a full second ahead of Australian swimmer Kyle Chalmers, who placed second, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
The margin of victory had not been seen in almost a century, since Johnny Weissmuller, who would go on to an acting career playing Tarzan, won a gold medal in 1928, according to the U.K. Independent.
Australian swimming coach and former Olympic swimmer Brett Hawke loudly voiced his anger at the result — without making a specific accusation.
“If it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” he said, according to the Daily Mail.
“Listen, I’m just going to be honest, I am angry at that swim,” Hawke said in a video on Instagram.
“Look, I’m angry for a number of reasons. Look, my friends are the fastest swimmers in history from Rowdy Gaines to Alex Popov to Gary Hall Jr, Anthony Irvin and all the way up to King Kyle Chalmers. I know these people intimately, I’ve studied them for 30 years. I’ve studied this sport. I’ve studied speed. I understand it. I’m an expert in it, that’s what I do, OK,” he said.
“I’m upset right now because you don’t win 100 freestyle by a body length on that field. You just don’t do it. It is not humanly possible to beat that field by a body length.”
Are you watching the Olympics?
“I don’t care what you say. This is not a race thing. This is not against any one particular person or nation. This is just what I see and what I know,” he continued.
“That’s not real, you don’t beat that field — Kyle Chalmers, David Popovici, Jack Alexy — you don’t beat those guys by one full body length in 100 freestyle. That’s not humanly possible, OK, so don’t sell it to me, don’t shove it down my throat. It’s not real.”
I’m SICK of extremist Chinese nationalists constantly abusing Australian athletes for no reason.
Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle broke a world record in the men’s 100m freestyle the other day. Bizarrely, he used his first post swim interview to attack Australian swimmer Kyle Chalmers… pic.twitter.com/oucrfidjlX
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) August 2, 2024
Pan said he passed his drug test, according to the Daily Mail.
“The testing was essentially done under all the regulations, so I don’t feel there was any difference or influence,” Pan said.
Two elite Chinese swimmers, including one named to her country’s team in the Paris Olympics, tested positive in 2022 for a banned drug but were secretly cleared of doping late last year by Chinese authorities. Our sports correspondent Tariq Panja explains. https://t.co/pecBvVCYeq pic.twitter.com/mY4fOco9Sd
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 1, 2024
Chalmers did not make any accusations against Pan.
“I do everything I possibly can to win the race and trust everyone’s doing the same as I am, staying true to the integrity of sport,” he said.
“I trust that … [Pan] deserves that gold medal,” he said.
