2024 Swammy Awards: Asian Male Swimmer Of The Year – Pan Zhanle

SwimSwam’s Official 2024 Swammy Awards Index

2024 ASIAN MALE OF THE YEAR: PAN ZHANLE (CHN)

For the second year in a row, our Swammy for Asian Male Swimmer of the Year is awarded to an athlete hailing from the nation of China.

Upgrading his status from honorable mention for 2023, 20-year-old Pan Zhanle was the runaway winner due to his breakout performances in the 100m freestyle.

Pan cracked a new World Record in the event on the opening night of the 2024 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, firing off a massive 46.80 as lead-off on his nation’s men’s 4x100m free relay.

His outing represented just his second-ever sub-47-second result. Pan not only overtook his previous Chinese national record of 46.97 which was set at last year’s Asian Games, but it shaved .06 off of Romanian David Popovici‘s eye-popping WR mark of 46.86 established at the 2022 European Championships.

In Doha, Pan took the individual 100m free gold in a time of 47.53, becoming China’s second-ever world champion in the event joining retired Ning Zetao topped the podium in 2015.

Pan made even more history at the 2024 Olympic Games where he won the 100m freestyle event in a time of 46.40, hacking nearly half a second off his previous WR. His 1.08-second margin of victory ahead of runner-up Kyle Chalmers of Australia (47.48) marked the largest deficit in the event since it joined the Olympic program in 1928.

Additionally, Pan ripped a split of 45.92 as anchor on the Chinese men’s 4x100m medley relay, helping propel the nation to gold while also handing the United States its first defeat in the event since 1960.

The other-worldly 45.92 performance represented the first-ever sub-46-second split. It surpassed the previous all-time fastest leg of a 46.06 American Jason Lezak put up at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to deliver gold in the men’s 4×100 freestyle relay.

Pan capped off his 2024 year by racing in the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup series, demonstrating his prowess in the short course pool.

He clocked a new Chinese national record of 1:41.59 in the 200m freestyle at the Singapore stop, becoming the first-ever man from the country to go sub-1:42. Entering the competition, Pan’s previous personal best rested at the 1:42.66 logged at the 2022 Chinese National Championships.

Then Pan wowed the swimming community with a range-busting national record in the 800m free. While racing in Incheon, Korea, Pan notched a mark of 7:35.30, handily defeating the field by nearly 4 seconds.

In addition to establishing a new Chinese standard, Pan’s effort punched a new World Cup record, with his performance overtaking the previous mark of 7:35.58 Italian Olympian Gabriele Detti put on the books in 2017.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

• Qin Haiyang (CHN) – China’s 200m breast world record holder Qin Haiyang had a rough Olympic Games, finding himself off the individual event podium after a history-making 2023 year. However, the 25-year-old did make noise on his nation’s mixed medley and men’s medley relays, swimming the fastest splits of the field (57.82 and 57.98) to help collect respective silver and gold. This fall, Qin raced on the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup circuit and finished 5th in the overall money standings and produced Asian Records in both the 50m and 100m breast. He wound up dropping his 100m breast continental standard even lower en route to claiming gold in both events at this year’s Short Course World Championships.
• Tomoyuki Matsushita (JPN) – Although Japan’s Daiya Seto was a bona fide 400m IM medal contender at the 2024 Olympic Games, it was Japanese teammate Tomoyuki Matsushita who turned in a surprising performance. Matsushita stopped the clock at 4:08.62, a new lifetime best by over a second to earn the silver medal. At the time, Matsushita was just 18 years of age, with his result checking him in as the 4th youngest Olympic medalist of all-time in the 400m IM and the youngest medalist in over 40 years.

PREVIOUS WINNERS

• 2023 – Qin Haiyang, China
• 2022 – Hwang Sunwoo, South Korea
• 2021 – Wang Shun, China
• 2020 – Kosuke Hagino, Japan
• 2019 – Daiya Seto, Japan
• 2018 – Daiya Seto, Japan
• 2017 – Sun Yang, China
• 2016 – Kosuke Hagino, Japan
• 2015 – Sun Yang, China
• 2014 – Kosuke Hagino, Japan
• 2013 – Sun Yang, China