China’s Pan Zhanle set a new world record as he stormed to victory in the men’s 100m freestyle final at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday.
Pan touched the wall in 46.40 seconds, more than a second ahead of Australian Kyle Chalmers, who took silver.
Romania’s David Popovici claimed bronze, one hundredth of a second further back.
Pan’s time eclipsed his own previous record of 46.80 set in Doha in February.
“I felt a great deal of pressure before the race because many of my teammates did not deliver good performance and did not win the medals they were aiming for,” Pan said.
“Today I did not expect to break the record actually. It’s a perfect result and it’s a big step for me and the Chinese swimming team.”
The 19-year-old said that he had slept little before the final because of a doping test that ran into the early hours of the morning.
“The doping test after the team relay went until 2:30am,” he said. “I did not sleep well and did not feel good today when I arrived at the arena. All the tests have not affected me much and I’m not annoyed by it. It’s a part of the rules.”
