Paris Olympics: China's Pan sets world record to win men's 100m freestyle swimming gold

Paris, Aug 1 (IANS) China's Pan Zhanle has set a new 100m freestyle world record of 46.40, the first swimming world record of the Olympic Games 2024.

Pan touched the wall a second ahead of Australia’s Kyle Chalmers, who took silver with a time of 47.48, followed by Romania’s David Popovici in bronze-medal position with a time of 47.49.

Pan's time eclipsed his own previous record of 46.80 set in Doha in February. His gold-medal victory also represents a first-ever medal for China in the 100m freestyle.

Swimming’s most decorated Olympian, Michael Phelps, reacted to Pan’s world-record time on US broadcaster NBC, saying, "That is mind-blowing for me. I’ve never seen a win of that margin in that race in my career. And to go 46.4 - that’s unheard of! “To be that much closer to going 45 seconds in a 100 freestyle, I can’t understand that, I really can’t."

On the other hand, this is the second medal in Paris for Chalmers, who also won silver in the 4x100m freestyle relay.

This also marks a second medal for Popovici following his gold-medal victory in the men’s 200m freestyle.

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