Swimming: China’s Pan Zhanle breaks men’s 100m freestyle Asian record

HANGZHOU (China): China’s rising star Pan Zhanle broke the men’s 100m freestyle Asian record in the swimming national championships here on Monday.

Pan, 18, led all the way to win the 100m free in 47.22 seconds, 0.34 seconds faster than the old Asian record. Wang Haoyu was second in 48.15, while Chen Juner came third in 48.94.

“It is beyond my expectation,” said Pan. “My time was always around 47.50 in training.”

Pan’s result ranked first in the event’s world rankings this year, beating World Champion David Popovici’s year best of 47.61 made at the Romanian national championships in April, reports Xinhua.

“I hope I can be one of the world’s best swimmers and compete with David Popovici one day,” he added.

Pan had broken the short-course 100m free Asian record at the short-course swimming worlds in Melbourne last year.

In the women’s 200m butterfly, Olympic champion Zhang Yufei grabbed the gold in 2:07.99, which was far behind her training time. Yu Liyan came second in 2:08.33, while Zhang Yipan was third in 2:09.79. (IANS)

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