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Australian coach and former swimmer Brett Hawke has questioned the integrity of the performance by Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle, who broke his own 100m freestyle world record and was crowned Olympic champion at the La Défense stadium on Wednesday night, saying it was “not in the human right”.
“I’m pissed after this race for several reasons,” the former sprinter said in a video posted on his Instagram account. Pan improved his record to 40/100 (46.40), a ratio not seen in 48 years.
“It’s not real, you can’t beat a team like that — Kyle Chalmers, David Popovich, Jack Alexi — like that, one step ahead. It’s humanly impossible,” Hawke said.
“My friends, from Rowdy Gaines and Alex Popov to Gary Hall Jr and Anthony Irvin to Kyle ‘The King’ Chalmers, are some of the fastest swimmers of all time,” said the 49-year-old coach. “I know these guys very well, I’ve watched them for 30 years, I’ve studied the sport, I’ve studied the speed phenomenon. I’m an expert on it,” continued Hawke, now a U.S. citizen.
Kyle Chalmers, a Pan who finished second at the 2016 Rio Olympics and is set to finish second at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, disagrees with his elders. “I have faith in him and I think he has done everything he could to be there and he deserves this gold medal,” the Australian said.
“I did everything I could to win this tournament, and I think everybody did the same thing while keeping the integrity of the sport,” he said.
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