See all of our 2024 Swammy Awards right here.
The Chinese language workforce received two gold medals within the pool on the Tokyo Olympics, and Pan Zhanle had a significant hand in each of them.
Pan’s earth-shattering swims in Paris helped land his coach, Zheng Kunliang, the 2024 Swammy Award for Asian Coach of the Yr.
Zheng has been working with Pan since 2018, offering him with a robust distance freestyle base earlier than actually honing in on the dash occasions over the previous couple of years.
Pan was an Honorable Point out in our 2023 awards for Breakout Male Swimmer of the Yr, having a robust displaying at Worlds in Fukuoka after which becoming a member of the sub-47 membership within the 100 free on the Asian Video games, however he took issues to a brand new stage in 2024.
On the World Championships in Doha, Pan established a brand new world file within the males’s 100 free, clocking 46.80 main off China’s 4×100 free relay to decrease David Popovici‘s mark of 46.86 from 2022.
Pan walked away from these championships with 4 gold medals, as China received that relay and in addition claimed the boys’s 4×200 free and the combined 4×100 medley, and Pan received his first particular person world title within the 100 free (47.53).
A swim that flies beneath the radar for Pan in 2024 was his cut up within the 4×200 free relay in Doha, the place he was 1:43.90 on the third leg as China edged out South Korean and america in an epic race.
At his debut Olympics, Pan carried out extremely beneath the lights in Paris.
The now 20-year-old kicked issues off by breaking the Olympic Report within the 100 free main off the Chinese language males’s 4×100 free relay, touching in 46.92 earlier than the workforce in the end completed 4th.
That was solely a precursor to the person 100 free, the place, after a shaky prelim, qualifying thirteenth in 48.40, Pan superior 1st out of the semis in 47.21, after which delivered arguably the perfect swim of the yr within the remaining, shattering his world file by four-tenths in a time of 46.40, marking the most important chunk taken off the 100 free world file since 1976.
The swim received him gold by a staggering 1.08 seconds, the biggest margin of victory within the occasion since 1928.
Pan made extra historical past on the finish of the meet within the males’s 4×100 medley relay, anchoring China to an upset gold over the People with the quickest cut up in historical past. Pan got here house in 45.92, overtaking Jason Lezak‘s historic 46.06 leg from 2008 for the quickest ever, as China touched in 3:27.46 to high the U.S. (3:28.01) and hand them their first-ever loss within the occasion in Olympic competitors.
Pan added a 3rd medal on the Olympics by swimming on China’s preliminary relay of the combined 4×100 medley that went on to win silver, and he didn’t finish his yr there, competing in any respect three legs of the 2024 World Cup.
Pan leaned on his distance background to win the boys’s 400 free (3:36.43) and 800 free (7:35.30) on the second cease of the sequence in Incheon, with the latter marking a brand new Chinese language and World Cup Report. He additionally received the 100 free in Singapore (46.09), and set a private better of 1:41.59 within the 200 free to complete third on the identical meet.
Zheng, a 2004 Olympic swimmer for China, additionally coached distance freestyler Fei Liwei to a robust yr within the pool.
Fei made the ultimate of the boys’s 1500 free on the World Championships in Doha, clocking 14:50.51 to position seventh. The 21-year-old then set a trio of non-public greatest occasions on the Olympics, inserting sixth within the males’s 400 free (3:44.24), tenth within the 800 free (7:47.11) and ninth within the 1500 free (14:50.06).
He additionally teamed up with Pan on the Chinese language males’s 4×200 free relay that completed 4th.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
- Cui Dengrong (CHN) – Cui, our 2023 Asian Coach of the Yr, noticed extra success from his athletes in 2024, with two of them incomes Olympic medals and a 3rd claiming an upset world title. On the World Championships in Doha, Dong Zhihao, 18 on the time, roared to gold within the males’s 200 breast, clocking 2:07.94. Then, on the Olympics, one in every of Cui’s star swimmers, Zhang Yufei, received six medals to guide all athletes in Paris, incomes particular person bronze within the girls’s 50 free, 100 fly and 200 fly and including relay medals with a silver within the combined 4×100 medley and a pair of bronzes within the girls’s 4×100 free and 4×100 medley. Making his Olympic debut, Dong positioned 4th within the 200 breast, clocking 2:08.46. Qin Haiyang, who had a dominant efficiency on the 2023 World Championships, had a comparatively disappointing displaying in Paris, inserting seventh within the 100 breast and tenth within the 200 breast whereas going considerably slower than he had the yr prior. Qin rallied to submit a pair of fast breaststroke splits on China’s combined (57.82) and males’s (57.98) medley relays, incomes him one gold and one silver medal. He closed off the yr on a excessive be aware, profitable gold within the males’s 50 and 100 breast at Quick Course Worlds, breaking Asian Data in each occasions throughout the SC season.
- Norimasa Hirai (JPN) – Well-known for teaching the likes of Kosuke Kitajima, Kosuke Hagino and Yui Ohashi, Hiromasa coached Japanese teenager Tomoyuki Matsushita to an upset silver medal on the Olympics in Paris, as he earned silver in a time of 4:08.62 three days earlier than his nineteenth birthday. That swim marked a PB by almost a second and a half, as Matsushita beforehand went 4:10.04 on the Olympic Trials in March. That swim was the lone swimming medal for Japan on the Olympics.
Previous Winners:
