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Pan Zhanle, world record holder in the men’s LCM 100 freestyle, put on a show in the 800m free tonight in Incheon to close out the 2nd World Cup stop. Archive photo via Jack Spitser/Spitser Photography
Australian Olympic swim coach Michael Palfrey, after being fired from his coaching job at home, has emerged in Jiangsu Province in China.
The battle between the Auburn and UNC women came down to the final relay, while the unranked UNC men defeated the Tigers by 38 points.
Leon Marchand and Kate Douglass are eligible for three Triple Crowns in Singapore, while Siobhan Haughey aims to sweep the 100/200 free for the 3rd World Cup.
Olympic medalists Claire Weinstein (above) and Katie Grimes will join the lineup for the final stop of the 2024 Swimming World Cup in Singapore.
2020 Olympian Kayla Sanchez is settling in to her new training grounds in Vancouver, back in Canada after swimming for the Philippines at the 2024 Olympics.
October 26th, 2024
Pan Zhanle of China continued to impress at the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup in Incheon, Korea.
After upsetting a stacked men’s 400m freestyle field on day one, the reigning 100m free Olympic champion and world record holder doubled up with gold in the 800m free on the final night of action.
20-year-old Pan stopped the clock at a head-turning 7:35.30. That handily defeated the field, with the next-closest swimmer Kim Junwoo of the host nation touching nearly 4 seconds later in 7:39.15. Japan’s Kazushi Imafuku rounded out the podium in 7:40.77.
Pan’s effort this evening established a new World Cup record, with this performance overtaking the previous mark of 7:35.58 Italian Olympian Gabriel Detti put on the books in 2017.
The World Aquatics swimming database doesn’t list a SCM 800 free performance for Pan although his outing tonight now rendered him the Chinese record holder. His massive outing here easily wiped out the previous Chinese standard of 7:37.74 Fei Liwei established at the 2022 national short course championships.
The Asian record remains at the 7:33.78 Japan’s Shogo Takeda logged at the 2022 World Championships but Pan is now the 2nd-best Asian performer ever behind him.
As we reported after his 400m free victory, Pan’s foray into the mid-distance events isn’t entirely out of character for the fastest 100m freestyler in history. He was primarily focused on the longer events until he started training for sprints during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Must have gotten into the good stuff….
Pan will be the first to break 3:40 in the 400 LCM
Him and Leon are in their own tier at the top for men’s swimming right now
That is really fast and insane. Do you think that he could win the 100,200,400, AND 800 if the Olympic schedule suits it?
800, no, 7:35 is an impressive time but in LCM that’s still in the 7:50s. 400 also seems like a stretch, but if he focuses on his 200 and takes it seriously that is a real possibility.
This is awesome. I do wish that he tried in the 200 free in Paris. I think he had a 1:42 in him.
He did try it… he was 22nd, with 1:49. Maybe you mean he should have focused on it, which he clearly didn’t (but if he had, maybe he would’ve been less successful in the 100.) Popovici also had a 1:42 in him, because he swam that before, it’s just that the final in Paris was slower than expected, for whatever reason. Obviously we’ll see what the future holds.
He clearly didn’t give his max. Did 1:49 looking like he was warming up, his goal was the 100 free
OK, but if he thought he’d have a 1:42 in him for the 200 and still have a 46 for the 100, wouldn’t he have “given his max” in both? Let’s remember he also nearly didn’t make it out of heats in the 100… he’s not superhuman (though obviously, he is the fastest 100 freestyler in history) and trying harder in the 200 may have led to him not even making the final in the 100.
To be more precise, his goal was to smash the 100 free WR, as he basically predicted as such in a prior interview (his comment not broadcasted until after the race, as agreed).
He has mentioned he was extremely nervous, leading up to the race (even suffered a bit of a fever, which apparently spread through several of his teammates). Never mind the “external distractions” (very real and otherwise) that were swirling around him and his team that could have disrupted his mental game. The 200 could have helped release some of those nerves.
So, he had a lot on his shoulders (and legs) with self-expectation alone such that he needed to harness his focus and energy to… Read more »
In an article with Denis Corterell he [Pan] stated that, “He entered the 200m freestyle but deliberately tanked his heat race to focus on the 100m.”
I guess I’m not sure what to get out of comments like “I wish he’d done the 200 in Paris” and when I point out that he had, the answer is “well, he didn’t really try” or “well, he tanked it.” Like, what is the point of saying this at all? He had the chance to try both of them “for real” and he didn’t (or he did but, either way, had a very slow time in the 200). Clearly this worked out really well for his 100m in the end.
Pan also alluded that he didn’t think he could beat the 200m freestyle experts at this Olympics which really should be the end of this hypothetical. Cause if he thought he had a chance to win that event he def would’ve went for it even if it might’ve hurt a bit his 100m free time cause with an extra gold medal there China would’ve overtook USA in the gold medals ranking which would’ve been huge considering that USA is gonna have the homefield advantage at the next Olympics (also in general who wouldn’t aim to win an extra gold medal if they thought it was within their reach ?).
Dude you are getting way worked up about this. I just wish Pan was at his best in the 200.
He really wanted a new world record in 100 free so it wouldn’t be a good strategy to tire himself out in the 200 free. He knows his limits.
I don’t think we’ve seen a male freestyler with this sort of versatility since Thorpe. This is insane.
Agnel 2012 was pretty good. Too bad he got lost in video games and other things
Other things is doing a tremendous amount of work here
And this is why Pan said he doesn’t do video games anymore (this was a joke by the way, but yes he said he doesn’t do video games because he worries he won’t sleep because of them lol)
He has famously quoted as saying playing video games are for kids but I reckon the real reason is he does not have time for anything else other than training and doing his online bachelor degree. It is impossible to find a 20-year-old male in China who does not like playing video games.
Makes sense he has such an incredible aerobic base. In his 100 record he just simply came home like a freight train. He took it out how you have to but just held on. Seeing his ability in the distance events really lets you appreciate that 100 swim, that back 50 was just other worldly.
Also something I noticed on that 100 swim, his kick is primarily used to keep his body at the top of the water. He rides so high but you can see that his kick lifts him up a bit more than others who focus on propellant kicking. I wonder if the impact of kicking to raise the body has more benefit than propelling forward.
Very professional, thanks
That’s an interesting observation, and sort of aligns with this new “skinny guy in the 100 free” phenomenon.
There’s been kind of a body of scientific work in swimming in the last 10 years arguing that the kick doesn’t bring propulsion in freestyle, but anecdotally coaches all can correlate strong kick to strong times in the sprint frees.
So maybe this is the hidden variable.
https://swimswam.com/biomechanics-study-kicking-may-bring-no-benefit-in-freestyle/
Wasn’t that a pretty problematic article though? The study it discussed didn’t account for tons of relevant factors, like difference in oxygen use between distances or ankle flexibility.
It kind of just concluded that you have lower drag if your body is pulled through the water. There is also all the empirical data that proves the opposite.
Many scientific studies are rife with methodology issues, starting with isolating the conflating elements that work in tandem.
How can they replicate a swimmer such as Pan whose body (along with Povici) is atypical? Or his unique execution of mainstream or newly evolved techniques.
Will his kicking work the same for anybody? Or more likely, his kicking suits his entire body mechanisms (down to his shoulder and hip rotations) in symbiosis?
Then again, with AI, a lot of advancement in exploring can be done with computer modeling (not that AI is not flawed, as I well know from Bard/Gemini). Man, if astrophysicists can project a space probe to the far reaches of a precise moon of Uranus… Read more »
We now have more talented scientist and data nerds that all of humanity combined so it gives more opportunities to look at more wide ranging topics.
If you think about the knowledge and curiosity that someone like Einstein had, we literally have millions of people with that knowledge (or access to with the ability to understand) and also curiosity. Maybe not millions but you get my drift.
It’s a fun time to alive
Yeah, you reminded me of an argument I had (with the skeptics) of thanking the cosmos that we’ve had BIG THINKERS to push the boundaries of the unthinkable, unseeable [yeah, made up word] and indiscernible. (But the post was likely eaten by the gremlins.) Black holes were a theoretical concept until peripheral evidence of their halo was observed by more powerful telescopes. Same with the cosmic background radiation, proving the Big Bang. Or dark energy (which some has been spilling over into one thread oy vey!).
I’m definitely a science person with an open mind. And I obviously love science (not junk or pseudo ones with bad methodologies or cheats for fund grants), particularly astronomy.
Good call. I’ve seen comments elsewhere positing (or rather asserting) that Pan’s kick allows him to ride higher on the water, while there’s a synergistic effect that lying that high on top of the water enables him to kick harder more easily (less water resistance, right?). Makes sense to me. Nevertheless, he needs core strength to be effective and powerful, so they also say.
In one video with the camera isolated on Pan to almost side-by-side (the recorder had a seat with great angle), zoomed in, we can clearly see when he kicked his legs into overdrive on the last 50 meters of the 400. (The contrast in the shift is stark in the 400 as opposed to his… Read more »
An easy thought experiment that should bring home the benefit of using your legs to try and lift your body on top of the water – imagine you have to pull a canoe that has 100 pounds in it from one side of a lake to the other. Would you like that canoe barely above the water or below it while you drag it through the water? I would try and get that canoe sitting as high in the water as possible because every little bit higher makes it a little easier to move.
I think the next generation will realize that being on top of the water is as or more important than powering your body through it.… Read more »
Already been done with the Supersuits. Kept swimmers on top of the water longer so they came home like crazy.
Exactly my point. The goal now would be to use your kick to get you to position that the suits gave you. We know the benefit of riding high in the water, via suits, just need to get to that buoyancy without them utilizing the human body (kicking in this case)
Actually it’s his first time to race 800m in short course. So Database doesn’t list a SCM 800m performance, and maybe he races it just for fun.
Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.
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