Olympic champion Pan Zhanle sets new Chinese World Cup records in the 800 free

WORLD AQUATICS SWIMMING WORLD CUP 2024 – INCHEON

Pan Zhanle from China continued to impress at the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup in Incheon, Korea.

After upsetting a crowded 400m freestyle men’s field on the first day, the reigning 100m freestyle Olympic champion and world record holder secured the gold medal in the 800m freestyle on the final evening of action.

Pan, 20, stopped the clock at a stunning 7:35.30. He clearly beat the field with the next closest swimmer Kim Junwoo of the host country, which arrived almost 4 seconds later in 7:39.15. Japan Kazushi Imafuku completed the podium in 7:40.77.

Pan’s performance tonight set a new World Cup record, surpassing the previous mark of 7:35.58 for the Italian Olympian Gabriel Detti Added to the books in 2017.

The World Aquatics swimming database does not list an SCM 800 free performance for Pan, although his outing tonight has now made him the Chinese record holder. His tremendous performance here easily surpassed the previous Chinese standard of 7:37.74 Fei Liwei established at the national short course championships 2022.

The Asian record remains 7:33.78 set by Japan Shogo Takeda Pan registered for the 2022 World Championships, but Pan is now the second best Asian player of all time behind him.

As we reported after his 400m freestyle victory, Pan’s push into the middle distance is not entirely out of character for the fastest 100m freestyle runner in history. He focused primarily on the longer events until he began training for sprints during the COVID-19 pandemic.