Chinese teen breaks men’s 100m record, S. Korea wins gold in men’s 400m at World Aquatics
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China and South Korea saw back-to-back gold medal wins in swimming at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday.
Fastest swimmer: China’s Pan Zhanle, 19, bagged the gold from the 4x100m relay event by finishing in a record-breaking 46.8 seconds. Romanian teen swimmer David Popovici, 19, previously set the 100-meter record in 46.86 seconds, which he achieved at the European championships in Rome in August 2022.
China finished with a total time of 3:11.08, followed by Italy with 3:12.08 and the U.S. with 3:12.29.
🇨🇳 Pan Zhanle "The World Record is not the end is just the beginning" 😱 Listen to what our swimmers had to say after the first night at #AQUADoha2024 pic.twitter.com/9u29TMnJjl
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— World Aquatics (@WorldAquatics) February 11, 2024
Sunday's historic win makes Pan the only Chinese man to hold a record in the event. Additionally, he is now included in the list of a very few men in history who have broken through the 47-second mark in the 100-meter freestyle.
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First world title in years: Elsewhere at the championship, Kim Woo-min, 22, took home the gold from the men's 400-meter freestyle, and with it, South Korea’s first world title in 13 years. Kim finished with a time of 3:42.71, followed by Australian Elijah Winnington, 23, with 3:42.86 and German Lukas Martens, 22, with 3:42.96.
South Korea last won the 400-meter freestyle in 2011 with two-time champion Park Tae-hwan. Park won his first world title in 2007.
First gold🥇 of #Swimming at #AQUADoha2024 goes to Woomin Kim🇰🇷 in the Men's 400m freestyle with a time of 3:42.71! pic.twitter.com/Lf3PULUAkm
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— World Aquatics (@WorldAquatics) February 11, 2024
What they’re saying: Speaking to reporters, Pan said he trusted his teammates and that they did their best to win a gold medal. While he previously told CGTN that he wanted to break the men's 100-meter freestyle record, he said he did not expect to actually be able to do it.
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Similarly, Kim told reporters he did not expect to win on Sunday. “It means so much to me that my first world championships medal was a gold medal,” he said.
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