Evolution of the stroke: Pan Zhanle’s world record takes freestyle to achievable level
Should we be sceptical about Pan Zhanle’s 100m freestyle record, or is it in fact a long overdue progression? TODD BALYM deep dives into the evolution of swimming since 2009.
Swimming
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The old adage in swimming is that records are made to be broken, but like this?
China’s Pan Zhanle took the biggest chunk of time out of the men’s 100m freestyle world record in almost half a century when he won the Olympic gold medal in Paris in 46.40s.
Not since 1976 when South Africa’s Jonty Skinner broke Jim Montgomery of the USA’s incredible 49.99s record with a 49.44s swim has the world seen such a plummet in the blue riband mark.
Pan’s 0.4s improvement on his own world record prompted world-renowned sprint coach Brett Hawke to publicly declare the swim “not humanly possible” and “not real”, but athletes themselves are, at least publicly, far more circumspect.
So should we be sceptical about Pan’s record, or is it in fact a long overdue progression?
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Pan’s world record time is the first major step forward sprint freestyle has made since the super suit era ended in 2009 with Hawke’s Brazilian athlete Cesar Cielo holding the record at 46.91s.
So in 15 years, even with modern training facilities, high performance environments, technological advances in and out of the pool, sprint freestyle has gained just 0.51 seconds.
Look back further, the world record pre-super suits was held by flying Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband when he became the first man to break 48 seconds with a 47.84s swim at the Sydney Olympics.
So in 24 years, the world record has improved by just 1.44s.
THE EMPHATIC WIN
Part of the Pan riddle is the fact he won the race by more than a second. But that is more a reflection of his rivals than of him.
The time swum by Kyle Chalmers for silver, 47.48s, would not have been on the podium at the Tokyo Olympics.
Pan’s problem is that he’s taken his performance forwards while Chalmers and everyone else has been treading water.
The 19-year-old broke 47 seconds for the first time last year, swimming 46.97s at the Asian Games, while he was clocked at 47.65s in 2022.
A 1.25s drop in two years is not unexpected for any gifted teenager.
US butterfly star Gretchen Walsh dropped her PB from 56.34s to 55.18s (1.16s) in one year when she broke the world record by 0.3s in the 100m fly at the US Olympic trials last month. Nobody blinked an eye at that performance.
Chalmers swam 47.58s to win Rio gold as a teenager, but in eight years since has got down to 47.08s twice, only a half second improvement.
Popovici, the other teenage boy wonder from Romania, broke the world record two years ago when he clocked 46.88s. For him to produce 47.49s was actually a step back from his true level. Had he been eyeballing Pan into the wall, would the suspicion be as strong?
Popovici was adamant Pan’s time is just the start and “we can go even faster.”
QUANTUM LEAPERS
The questions about Pan exist largely due to China’s historical doping reputation, and that is understandable given recent news.
Pan has never been linked to any of the three separate doping cover-ups to emerge this year where Chinese swimmers escaped bans for positive tests due to contamination.
He has been heavily tested leading into the Olympic Games and, as Popovici said, is innocent until proven guilty.
But swimming is a sport where perceptions and reputations are hard to change, eyebrows are often cocked and improvements spoken about in whispered tones when it comes from a country with historical doping issues.
It is also a sport where once-in-a-generation athletes appear with more regularity than the name suggests.
Michael Phelps broke the 200m butterfly world record eight times in eight years, lowering it by 3.67s in that time. He broke the 400m medley record eight times in six years making it 7.92s faster than it once was.
Katie Ledecky, the GOAT of women’s swimming, took almost 10 seconds off the 800m freestyle world record when she broke it six times in three years.
Australia’s own Ian Thorpe moved the goalposts significantly in 400m freestyle when he broke the world record five times in three years from 1999-2002 making it 3.72s faster at 3:40.08 that only one man (in a super suit) has been able to beat since.
But distance events are very different to sprinting, so perhaps Brit breaststroke king Adam Peaty is a more comparable yardstick.
He broke the world record five times in four years, taking the 100m breaststroke from 58.46s to 56.88s. Swimming always finds a way to revolutionise and move forwards.
A LOOK AT ALL THE STROKES
Peaty’s breaststroke stands as the greatest forward shift of any men’s or women’s sprint event since the end of super suits with a 1.70s leap.
In fact, Pan’s freestyle jump of 0.51s ranks fourth, behind the women’s 100m backstroke improvement of 0.99s and women’s 100m butterfly at 0.88s.
So Australia’s own Kaylee McKeown previous 100m world record - and indeed Olympic winning time here in Paris of 57.33s - had a greater buffer over the super suit world record of 58.12s than Pan’s performance.
Some strokes have improved quicker than others. Until Pan’s swim in Paris, freestyle had the least improvement of any sprint event since 2009. It was overdue.
If you compare to the Sydney 2000 world records, men’s freestyle has improved 1.44s whereas the women’s world record has jumped 2.06s from 53.77 to 51.71s.
Pan’s moved the needle, who will do it next.
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