2025 World Championships
- July 27 – August 3, 2025 (pool swimming)
- Singapore, Singapore
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- LCM (50m)
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There was a fast and furious display of speed in the semi-finals of the men’s 100m freestyle on day four of the 2025 World Championships.
We saw a pair of sub-47-second swims already, with American Jack Alexy ripping a new American Record of 46.81 as the top seed.
Then, Romanian 200m free world champion here, David Popovici of Romania, produced a head-turning 46.84 as the 2nd-seeded swimmer.
Neutral athlete Egor Kornev turned in 47.29, Kyle Chalmers of Australia posted 47.36, while Maxime Grousset of France completed the top 5 positions in 47.39, setting us up for a monster final tomorrow night.
Surprisingly not joining the party, however, is 20-year-old Pan Zhanle of China, the reigning Olympic champion in this race.
Pan found himself relegated to the 10th seed in 47.81, forced to sit on the sidelines during tomorrow evening’s main event.
Pan split 22.78/25.03 this evening and his missing the 100m free final mimics his performance earlier in the meet in the 200m free. In the longer distance, the Chinese ace was a non-factor, turning in a time of 1:47.46 to finish 22nd and well out of even the semi-finals.
He said post-race that he ‘didn’t know what happened.’
Pan holds the World Record in this 100m free event after scorching the fastest time in history in Paris, a game-changing mark of 46.40. That destroyed the world-class field, beating runner-up Chalmers by over a second.
Of note, Pan has the 2025 Chinese National Games on the horizon for November. That is regarding as an extremely prestigous event within the nation so we may yet see the man rebound on home soil later this year.
Well Kyle Chalmers did say after Pan’s WR 100m FS Gold in Paris that Pan had “moved the goalpost”; everyone 100m contender in this 2025 WC meet went after that goalpost, except the guy who set that new goalpost… and it’s not like he didn’t try as he himself admits… in a state of shock when asked by reporters what he thinks about his 10th place finish, to which Pan responded: “10th place?!? I’m not in good shape.” He believed he could make sub-47 in this meeting, but now he realizes it’s time to make changes to what he believes in, and not in fact become complacent.
He has a tendency to do that. In last year’s Olympics, he almost missed the semi final /finals by only a split second.
He could have completely missed his Olympic gold medal swim if he was a split second late.
Some people go all hard on finals but softer on semi. Pan takes that bit too far constantly.
Probably he did not peaked at this meet
Many people thought Pan was not feeling PANNED on that day but he will come back strong and pan another GOLD in LA !
This meet is really putting swimmers in semi-final #1 on high alert. Better to not leave it to chance and just swim a fast time in semis to remove all doubt about making finals.
Heard BH is already on the phone trying to convince him to join the Enhanced Games.
If I remember correctly, the last time Worlds was right before the Chinese national games, China swam fine but not great and then exploded at the Chinese National Games. Wang Shun didn’t do well in the 200 IM at worlds but swam the fastest time in the world at the CNG. Some Chinese swimmers are doing very well but not all. This may be the case that Pan is focused there.
Swimming is not stagnant and isn’t based on past performances. With that being said, he’ll be back. It’s just the coaches need to manage him better (swimming the 200 in which he has no shot in, swimming in heats of the relays).
he has a 1.44 btw
He definitely has medal potential in the 200. His PB of 1:44.6 would have been 4th about a tenth off the podium.
With that being said, the LCM 200 – 100 double is pretty rare to be able to pull off well. I believe Pop is the only one to medal in both in the same competition since Thorpe in 2004.
His strategy is obviously to go all out in the final but easy at the heats. That’s good for Max performance at the end.
It backfired this time when he went too easy and just missed out. He should be less risky the next time if he wants to be back.