The script has been dramatically flipped after the amazing race between Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle and Australian sprint king Kyle Chalmers.
Accusations have been flying in the aftermath of their 100m freestyle final in which Pan stunned the Olympic Games with a world record swim.
Before the event, the pool had been called “slow’ due to its depth (it’s shallow), and Pan’s swim was the first world record in Paris.
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Given that Chinese swimmers had been involved in a doping scandal ahead of the Games (it came out that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive to a steroid before the Tokyo Olympics), eyebrows were immediately raised after Pan’s jaw-dropping effort.
Pan was not one of the swimmers to test positive, and after the race Chalmers — who was second — was all class, saying, “I trust that … he (Pan) deserves that gold medal.”
Later, however, Pan then made an accusation about Chalmers.
Speaking with Chinese television, Pan accused Chalmers of ignoring him earlier in the Games.
“On the first day, at the 4×100 relay, after we finished swimming I greeted Chalmers. He didn’t pay me any attention at all,” Pan told China Central Television.
According to translators, he also said American Jack Alexy had made movements “like he was deliberately splashing water on China’s coaches” in training.
“This behaviour seemed a bit disrespectful to us,” Pan said.
“But today, we beat all of them, and broke the world record in such a difficult pool. It was an extraordinary performance and a great start for the Chinese team.”
Pan was also quoted as saying, “We cleaned our past shame,” but that has been called “misleading” by translators.
There have been no outward signs of friction between the pair, who exchanged a post-race hand slap and posed together on the podium.
However, some Australian news mastheads believe they “shared a somewhat awkward handshake on the podium” during the medal presentation.
Speaking after the final, Chalmers said Pan, who is seven years his junior, had christened him as his “idol” on multiple occasions in conversations between the pair.
“Last year, I remember walking out before the final of the world championships and just he was maybe a lane next to me. He actually came up to me, and I didn’t know he spoke any English at that stage, and he said, ‘Kyle, I have so much respect for you. You’re my idol’,” he said.
“Then again tonight, after the race, I congratulated him and he said, ‘You are my idol’.
“I look at him the same as any competitor.”
Pan’s swim was indeed a barnstorming performance, finishing more than a second clear of the chasing pack in a time of 46.40sec.
Chalmers hit the wall in eighth but the 2016 gold medallist and 2020 silver medallist stormed home to claim another silver, touching the wall one-hundreth of a second before Romania’s David Popovici.
Australian swim coach and former freestyler Brett Hawke was one of many to question Pan’s performance, saying it was “not humanly possible”.
“Listen, I’m just going to be honest, I am angry at that swim,” Hawke said 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 okay.
“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.
“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.
“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 okay so don’t sell it to me, don’t shove it down my throat. It’s not real.”
– With The West Australian
