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Source: CCTV News Client

On August 6, 2024, the Chinese swimming team returned to their homeland after completing all the competition tasks of the Paris Olympics. Pan Zhanle, who won two golds and one silver and broke a world record in this Olympics, has become a legend that people have repeatedly reminisced about, and his state during media interviews has also been talked about with relish.

reporter:Has your world changed?

Pan Zhanle:I feel that I can’t go out alone anymore. Now when I come here for an interview, there are many people squatting downstairs of the hotel asking for autographs.

reporter:Are you happy?

Pan Zhanle was interviewed by CCTV

Pan Zhanle:I'm definitely not happy, because I'm still myself, not that good. The results are all obtained through training step by step, as the rumors on the internet say. They didn't come to me when I was not doing well, but it would be awkward if they came to me now. And this is the bad thing about being famous, too many people are around. I hope to be more low-key and quiet. I would rather not have such a good result this time, so that I can continue to train hard and at ease.

Pan Zhanle breaks world record at Paris Olympics

During the 9-day Olympic journey, Pan Zhanle created many historic moments. He won China's first men's 100-meter freestyle Olympic championship and improved his result by 0.4 seconds, breaking his own world record.

Pan Zhanle wins China's first men's 100m freestyle Olympic title

He completed a miraculous comeback in the last leg of the men's 4x100m medley relay final, helping the Chinese team win the championship and breaking the 40-year monopoly of the United States in this event. Such moments are the exciting charm of sports.

On August 4, 2024 local time, Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang, Sun Jiajun and Pan Zhanle appeared in the men's 4x100m medley relay final. Because Wang Changhao, the butterfly stroke baton, had an unexpected high fever during the preliminaries, Sun Jiajun was ordered to take over as a substitute.

After three rounds of baton-taking, the Chinese team was temporarily 0.75 seconds behind the first place.

reporter:When a runner is 0.75 seconds behind, how difficult would it be for him to catch up as the last runner?

Pan Zhanle:Before the competition, I didn’t pay attention to how other teams swam. I was paying attention to my own teammates, so I didn’t care about these things.

reporter:When you’re catching up in the 4x100m, is your competitive state the same as when you’re swimming the 100m alone?

Pan Zhanle said that chasing people can better bring out his own potential

Pan Zhanle:I feel that I can better display myself when I chase people, and the same is true for training, because there is no opponent. The people I train with are all long-distance athletes with a very high average level, but my maximum speed is faster than theirs. When I train to swim with them, I have to let them swim one or two seconds, let them swim first, and then I chase them from behind.

reporter:Why do you do this?

Pan Zhanle:Because this is the only way to train me, I mentioned this to my coach myself.

reporter:If you start at the same time as him normally, there will be no chasing process.

Pan Zhanle:Yes, it was difficult for anyone to catch up with him because he was too strong, including the first three baton runners in this mixed relay, who simulated the situation where the first three baton runners fell behind and then jumped down.

Pan Zhanle leads in the pool

reporter:When you are in the water, you will always look around you, or just look at yourself.

Pan Zhanle:I don't look until the last 25 meters. The last 25 meters of the 100 meters is the most critical stage. As long as you can hold on, others will fall, and you can beat them.

reporter:What do you mean if you hold up others you will fall?

Pan Zhanle said whoever can hold on will win

Pan Zhanle:Compared with them, I have the advantage of age, as well as the advantage of aerobics. After they finished the first 75 meters, they were the slowest in the last 25 meters. Everyone else was running on their last breath, and whoever could hold on would win.

Pan Zhanle completed a miraculous comeback in the last leg of the relay final

In 3 minutes 27 seconds 46, the Chinese team defeated the United States and won the Olympic gold medal for the first time, ending the monopoly of the United States in this event. Among them, Pan Zhanle broke the 46-second limit in the last freestyle segment and swam a score of 45.92 seconds. Although only the first runner of a non-mixed relay can be certified as a world record, this is the first time that a human has swum under 46 seconds. It has only been two years since Pan Zhanle broke the 48-second mark.

reporter:I believe you have also heard of the so-called "conclusion" in this industry, that is, Asians and yellow people may not be suitable for this.

Pan Zhanle:Yes, so maybe everyone is trapped by this conclusion, including the Japanese. Now the national record is 47.85 seconds. They may regard the goal of less than 48 seconds as a bit too high, very sacred, but for me it is not that high, I just regard it as a small step in my life.

The 48-second mark in the 100-meter freestyle is a threshold for Asian athletes. At the 2022 Budapest Swimming World Championships, Pan Zhanle swam 47.65 seconds in the 100-meter freestyle semifinals, becoming the second Chinese swimmer to swim under 48 seconds in this event. Since then, his performance has been rising. Before participating in the Paris Olympics, he won the 2024 Doha Swimming World Championships with a score of 46.80 seconds, breaking the world record of 46.86 seconds set by Romanian star Popovic and becoming the new world record holder in this event.

Pan Zhanle appears at the Olympics

The Paris Olympics was the first Olympics that Pan Zhanle participated in. Since the first Olympics in 1896, in the past 100 years, only a Japanese athlete in Asia won the men's 100-meter freestyle championship in 1932.

Pan Zhanle said that it is OK to participate in the competition easily

Pan Zhanle:Starting from the interview before the game, I have been giving myself psychological hints. I said that this competition is my first time participating in the Olympics, and the less pressure the better, including asking the outside world to pay attention to me. If I can win the gold medal, I will win it, and if I can't, it doesn't matter, there is still the next one, and I can just participate in the competition with ease.

Pan Zhanle leads his opponent in the swimming pool

Pan Zhanle's first final was the men's 4×100m freestyle relay. The Chinese team finished fourth in 3:11.28, but Pan Zhanle's first leg was 46.92, breaking the men's 100m freestyle Olympic record. However, despite a good start, he made people sweat in the preliminaries of his main event, the men's 100m freestyle.

reporter:What was your judgment of the preliminary round? What was your judgment of each contestant?

Pan Zhanle:Of course, no one will go all out in the preliminaries. Because Chalmers was next to me in the preliminaries. He was the champion in 2016 and the runner-up in 2020. His strength is 47.08 seconds. I think I should be able to get in if I follow him.

The difference between the masters was only a matter of millimeters. Pan Zhanle swam 48.40 seconds in the preliminaries and tied for 13th place.

reporter:Why? Did you swim like that on purpose?

Pan Zhanle:I wanted to save all my energy for the final, so I let go a little too much that morning.

reporter:That was pretty risky, I almost swam out.

Pan Zhanle:Good luck.

Pan Zhanle competes with his opponent

After advancing without any danger, Pan Zhanle did not dare to take it lightly. In the semi-finals, he slightly beat Australian player Chalmers and Romanian player Popovic, ranked first with a score of 47.21 seconds, and advanced to the finals.

reporter:After entering the finals, do you think the outside world is paying attention to you?

Pan Zhanle:I don't care about outside opinions.

reporter:Do you think everyone is optimistic about you?

Pan Zhanle:I don't care about these things. Besides, it's France's home stadium. Once you enter the stadium, as long as there are French athletes, they will cheer for them. You just need to not care, or treat those cheers as being for you.

On July 31, 2024 local time, in the men's 100m freestyle final, Pan Zhanle jumped into the water from the fourth lane.

Pan Zhanle is half a body length ahead of his opponent

The special thing about the swimming pool for the Paris Olympics is that it is less than 3 meters deep. In theory, the shallower the pool, the greater the surface waves under the same disturbance conditions, which will affect the athletes' technical performance.

Pan Zhanle:The 3-meter-deep pool means that no matter how big the waves are, the water below is still, which can help eliminate the waves. On the first day of the relay, I broke the Olympic record, 46.92 seconds. At that time, I was swimming in the fourth lane and felt the wave, which stopped me directly. Then I had to restart.

reporter:Does it affect you?

Pan Zhanle:Yes, but it also affected everyone. I didn’t feel this wave in the finals, maybe because Qiancheng rushed too fast and left them behind, and there was no wave.

Pan Zhanle leaves his opponent behind

In the last 50 meters, Pan Zhanle swam faster and faster, gradually leaving the other players behind by as much as a body length.

Pan Zhanle:Because I was breathing on the left side, I could see the people in lanes 5, 6, 7 and 8, and they were all slower than me. When I swam back, I couldn't see the athletes in lanes 1, 2 and 3, so I could only rush forward.

reporter:What does it mean to not see?

Pan Zhanle:Means unknown.

reporter:It is possible that he is in front, or it is possible that he is behind.

Pan Zhanle said he would do his best

Pan Zhanle:So I can only try my best. If I still can't beat them after trying my best, it only proves that I lost and I have to keep working hard next time.

Pan Zhanle won the first place

In the end, Pan Zhanle stood at the top of the world swimming arena with an advantage of 1.08 seconds. At 46.40 seconds, he surpassed himself and set a new world record. However, his performance has aroused doubts from some Western countries. Previously, the intensive doping test incidents suffered by the Chinese national swimming team on the eve of the Paris Olympics also aroused widespread attention and heated discussions.

Pan Zhanle:We certainly all hope that we will not be biased. Simply for the sake of breaking records or best results, I hope there will be more people who break every world record, so that it will be interesting.

reporter:Do you feel wronged? Do you feel wronged in your heart?

Pan Zhanle waves his arms to celebrate his gold medal

Pan Zhanle:Definitely, because I am innocent. Including my doping tests, I have tested negative more than 50 times last year and from May to July this year, and our food and drink are all controlled. After strict screening, there is no drug use, and no misuse.

reporter:What can you rely on to change?

Pan Zhanle:So to break their prejudice, the first thing is to do well and make sure you are innocent, and the second is to fight back against them with your achievements.

Pan Zhanle stood on the highest podium

The subsequent mixed men's and women's 4x100m medley relay preliminaries ushered in a stunning showdown. Pan Zhanle set an excellent score of 47.07 seconds in the last leg with a difference of milliseconds, helping the Chinese team climb from the 7th place in the group to the 2nd place, and successfully advanced to the finals with the third place overall. The Chinese team finally won the silver medal. Together with the two historic gold medals in the men's 100m freestyle and the men's 4x100m medley relay, Pan Zhanle ended his Paris Olympic debut with 2 golds and 1 silver. What's more perfect is that the day he staged a magical reversal in the men's 4x100m medley relay was his 20th birthday.

reporter:How did you celebrate your 20th birthday?

Pan Zhanle:Others wished me a happy birthday and that I had finally broken the 46-second barrier and fulfilled my dream.

reporter:How did you celebrate your birthday in the past? How did your parents celebrate it for you?

Pan Zhanle was interviewed by CCTV

Pan Zhanle:In the past, it was just a cake, and sometimes red envelopes or small gifts would be given out. Now, I don’t care about these anymore. I haven’t even posted on WeChat that today is my birthday. I think it’s just a very ordinary day, and I still have a long time to work hard.

reporter:Only when people become extraordinary will they do these ordinary things.

Pan Zhanle:Especially when I didn’t have any achievements in the past, I also really wanted to get some, wanted an autograph, and wanted to announce every day how my birthday was. Now I realize that my vision was too short-sighted.

reporter:What is short-sightedness?

Pan Zhanle:Because you can't train well every day, and you still tell others that it's your birthday today and want someone to congratulate you.

reporter:But you are already a world champion.

Pan Zhanle:Yes, so today, when I want to keep a low profile, I can’t, but when I don’t have any achievements, I can’t be high-key when I want to.

Pan Zhanle in training

Pan Zhanle, a 20-year-old who wants to be low-key but can't, always lets people see his unruly and flamboyant personality inadvertently, but in fact, this kind of personality of his has already been revealed in his youth when he wanted to be high-profile but couldn't. Pan Zhanle's hometown Wenzhou is known as the "hometown of swimming in China", and there are more than 100 swimming venues in the city. In such an environment, swimming became a natural choice. At first it was just a hobby, but Pan Zhanle soon showed his talent and was selected to the Wenzhou Sports School at the age of 7.

reporter:What was your goal as a child?

Pan Zhanle:I didn't have any goals when I was young because my parents would get angry if I didn't swim. The motto of the swimming school is to swim a little bit more every day, work a little harder every day, and exercise a little more every day.

reporter:But can this effort be sustained every day?

Pan Zhanle:So the next step is to rely on willpower. Many people have said before that my water sense is not the best, and my willpower and willpower quality are not as strong as theirs.

reporter:Do you bounce back when you hear these words?

Pan Zhanle:I won't rebel. Whatever they say is what it is. Only I know how hard I work, not them.

Young Pan Zhanle participated in the competition

At the 2014 Provincial Games, Pan Zhanle, who had just turned 10, won seven gold medals in five days, including the 50m, 100m, 400m freestyle and 200m medley and three relays. In every race, he was several steps ahead of his opponents. In 2022, Mark Schubert, a famous American coach who has coached eight American Olympic athletes, trained his players in China. Pan Zhanle swam the 200m medley in a short course in 1 minute and 57 seconds, which attracted Schubert's attention. Schubert suggested that he switch to the 200m medley.

Pan Zhanle:Others told me that coach Mark Schubert said I was suitable for medley swimming and that I had a future in medley swimming, but I understood that to mean that I had no future in 100-meter freestyle.

reporter:What impact does this sentence have on you?

Pan Zhanle:You say I can't do it, so someone must stand up and prove it to them.

Pan Zhanle conducts physical training

In 2022, Pan Zhanle was selected for the Chinese national swimming team and began more systematic and scientific training.

reporter:How hard can you train in a day?

Pan Zhanle:Normally I swim 15,000 meters a day.

reporter:How can I improve my speed?

Pan Zhanle:Sprint every day, 50 meters, 100 meters, 25 meters, 75 meters, etc. Because for swimming, if you don't practice for a day, your performance will actually decline.

reporter:Are there times when you feel annoyed?

Pan Zhanle:No, because at that time the goal was to focus on the world's top players. If I got annoyed, they would beat me.

Pan Zhanle training in the swimming pool

Modern competitive sports cannot do without the assistance of technology. Pan Zhanle’s training every day is accurate to the second; every movement is recorded, analyzed and improved countless times.

Pan Zhanle:It is the result of having such a scientific research team that we rely on the country.

reporter:What will be the difference between practicing with them and without them?

Pan Zhanle:Without their hard training, even if you succeed, you won't know the reason for your success. But with them, you will know what you still need to do at this stage of swimming, what you need to improve and what you need to improve.

Pan Zhanle in the competition

With steady practice day after day, Pan Zhanle has achieved self-breakthroughs again and again. In the 2022 Budapest Swimming World Championships, he swam 47.65 seconds in the 100m freestyle semi-finals, tying the national record held by Ning Zetao, becoming the second athlete in the history of Chinese men's short-distance freestyle to break the 48-second mark, and only 0.09 seconds away from the Asian record.

Pan Zhanle:After I swam out that time, I was still a little bit unbelieving, but in the final I broke 48 seconds again, and after that I felt that swimming under 48 seconds was not that difficult.

Pan Zhanle celebrates winning first place

In 2023, Pan Zhanle made rapid progress. At the National Swimming Championships, he won the men's 100m freestyle championship with a time of 47.22 seconds.

Pan Zhanle is making rapid progress

At the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, he swam a time of 46.97 seconds, becoming the first Asian swimmer to break the 47-second mark.

At the 2024 Doha World Swimming Championships, he improved his time to 46.80 seconds, breaking the men's 100m freestyle world record.

At the Paris Olympics, he broke his own world record with a time of 46.40 seconds.

reporter:Are you afraid that your record will be broken again and again by others?

Pan Zhanle:I'm not afraid, because I have been breaking other people's records step by step to get to where I am now, so someone will definitely break my record. What I have to do is to make the record last longer while I am still in service.

reporter:There is an old Chinese saying that "it is easy to conquer an empire but difficult to keep it". When your kingdom is destroyed by others, can you imagine how uncomfortable it would be?

Pan Zhanle:Of course, normal people would not feel comfortable, but first of all, congratulations, someone can break my record. There must be someone to lead the way, and then everyone can break out of this box. Just like I have achieved this result now, I will break higher and farther in the future, and there will be people behind me, not only in our country, but also in the United States, Britain, Australia, or other countries, who will stand up to break these. Since I came out, Wang Haoyu, who is one year younger than me, broke 48 seconds about half a year later than me.

reporter:So for athletes, make the impossible possible.

Pan Zhanle:That's what athletes are supposed to do.

Pan Zhanle in the swimming pool

When Pan Zhanle broke the world record at the Paris Olympics, Australian famous swimming coach Hawke expressed doubts, believing that this was impossible within human capabilities.

reporter:He said that it is impossible to prove this from scientific research. What do you think of his so-called "scientific proof"?

Pan Zhanle:I think what he said was very good. It would be better if he said it more times to mislead Westerners so that we can rise up.

reporter:He wasn't talking about the athletes he was familiar with; he was talking about humans who were unlikely.

Pan Zhanle:Since he said this, it proves that he has still trapped himself in a box and has not been able to break out of this range.

reporter:What do you think of the so-called framing?

Pan Zhanle:The frame is set for people. It is set by people for people. You just need to not believe it.

reporter:Does it affect you?

Pan Zhanle said that all encouragement and criticism will turn into motivation

Pan Zhanle:It helps. All the encouragement and words of disparagement from everyone can be turned into motivation for me.

After returning triumphantly from Paris, Pan Zhanle’s next goal is the 15th National Games in 2025.

reporter:You have already participated in the top-level event, the Olympics. Is it relatively less stressful to prepare for the National Games?

Pan Zhanle:The pressure is also quite high because I haven’t won the 100m freestyle championship at the National Games, but I have won the World Championships and the Olympics.

Pan Zhanle conducts physical training

reporter:If that's the case, how are you going to compete in the next Olympics? How are you going to win your next gold medal?

Pan Zhanle:As for the next gold medal, I don't think about it. I just think I can only win these two gold medals, and then I will train and give myself psychological hints in the next one. Normally, short-distance athletes are at their peak between the ages of 22 and 24, so I am looking forward to it. It may also be that I have been framed, because since others have said that the peak period is between the ages of 22 and 24, I will enter this frame once today and I will prove it.

reporter:If you only believe in good frameworks and not bad frameworks, then you are also a "double standard".

Pan Zhanle:Isn't that great? It's all good for you, and you really need this kind of "double standard" to prove yourself and stand up.

Pan Zhanle celebrates after winning the gold medal

The breakthrough Pan Zhanle made at this Olympics is not only a sports legend, but also a reflection of dreams, courage and perseverance. The world is looking forward to more legends, so Pan Zhanle is worth watching.

Producer: Liu Bin, Wang Huidong

Reporter: Dong Qian

Planning丨Huang Ying

Director: Ding Fang

Photography: Liu Hongbo, Gao Zhong, Wang Xiaolong