18 Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.
19 It is better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor
than to divide the spoil with the proud. [Proverbs 16:18-19, NRSV]
[L] The 4 China gold medalists of the men’s 4x100m medley relay. [R] Pan Zhanle
The “enemy’s success” is always hard to bear. It gnaws deep and it hurts real bad. You can go mad with envy and fear. Unless they are reined in, these runaway human emotions are wild beasts that drive people to do stupid things, as they clearly did when the first swimming world record-breaking news at the Paris 24 Olympics was flashed on TV screens across the globe.
On 1 August 2024, when Pan Zhanle (潘展乐), a 19 year-old Chinese swimmer won the Paris 2024 Olympic gold in men’s 100-meter freestyle, breaking his own world record while doing so, it was at once “a crime” against the American and Australian humanity, “a pill” too bitter to swallow for the decades-long dominant West.
So before Pan even got out of the pool, American and Australian swimming experts, watching the event live on TV, were already appearing on mass media screaming murder. Why did they turn raving mad?
The 100-meter swimming event had been their exclusive preserve – the holy ground of the white tribe of the West – for 64 years. No, a million “No”, a Chinese could never assail that sacred turf. It is simply impossible, “humanly impossible”, Brett Hawke, an Australian swimming coach screamed at his TV screen as fury erupted in him. He was “upset”. He was “angry”. His words. Verbatim. Why?
Because he knew these things, he studied these things (for 30 years), he made a living out of this. His words. And his conclusion, reiterated: he knew; they couldn’t fool him; “humanly impossible”. Pan’s gold-medal is “not real life”! As the comedy unfolded, it was entertaining just to watch a professional swimming coach turning juvenile. He was most unkind to himself; the world realized it, he didn’t. He made a spectacle of himself.
And of course the American media turned to their swimming legend, Michael Phelps, swimming’s most decorated Olympian, for authoritative comments, and he obliged the NBC broadcaster: No, this is not credible. You don’t break the 47-second barrier so easily; Pan’s 46.40 seconds new world record, leading the rest of the field by more than a whole second and a body-length, is simply incredible. Phelps said it with “authority”: Pan’s world-record breaking Olympic gold-medal performance is “not credible”. For if his performance were legal, his effort in water in 100-meter freestyle would no less parallel Usian Bolt’s colossal record-breaking on land in 100-meter sprint. Pan the “flying fish” would parallel Bolt “the lightning”, and that’s not something the American-led West could possibly give credit for, civilly.
Phelps went further, “That is mind-blowing for me. I’ve never seen a win of that margin in that race in my career. And to go 46.4 – that’s unheard of! … To be that much closer to going 45 seconds in a 100 freestyle, I can’t understand that, I really can’t.”
This is no French vineyards; they don’t grow sour grapes. Nor is the Olympic Games set out to be a geopolitical battleground. But the “fox’s tail” (in Chinese sarcastic idiom, quite unlike the West’s fancy for the foxy allure) in China-haters of the West are once-again on full display.
Watch the Stats
We return to the stats. In what was one of the most ferocious contests in swimming, Pan overpowered Australia’s Kyle Chalmers, who clocked a 47.48 for silver, and Romanian bronze medalist David Popovici in 47.49. Pan’s 1.08 seconds margin of victory was the largest in this event since the 1928 Olympics. But the West’s trauma was just beginning.
Three days later, at the men’s sensational 4×100 meters medley relay final, Pan helped the China Team win gold, delivering the first defeat to the United States in this event since it was included in the Olympic programme at the 1960 Olympics! Breaking news: China upended US pool dominance! This is like China knocking off the superpower in economics and military might!
As the anchor leg, Pan entered the water with his team in third place but powered his way to overtake the swimmers from the U.S. and France. He finished with the fastest split in history in the men’s 100 meter freestyle, clocking a stunning time of 45.92 seconds. The feat which Pan displayed before the world’s watchful eyes was, for Phelps, simply unattainable. Chalmers, who was overtaken from behind by Pan on the final leg, said later that he could only see Pan’s feet! Such was the incredible power and strength of Pan whom he acknowledged as having defeated him fair and square.
Liu Yu, a Beijing-based sports commentator, told the Global Times that the Chinese breakthrough at Paris “is highly significant and has a profound impact on the global swimming scene.” At the same time, the deeper truth did not escape commentators and analysts that in these two races – the men’s 100-meter freestyle and 100-meter medley relay – the Chinese swimmers’ iconic wins came despite unequal and oppressive drug-tests on the China swimming Team. More about this in the next post.
Let Actions Do the Talking
Pan is the first Asian athlete to win a gold medal at the Olympics 100m freestyle swimming. To-date, he is the only swimmer in the world to break the 47 seconds barrier 5 times. He is the lone athlete at the Paris 2024 Olympics to break both the world and Olympic swimming records.
What we found most impressive and a good model for contemporary youths is Pan’s attitude and work ethic. He believes in sheer hard work. He adheres closely to the principle of letting actions do the talking. When at the post-race interview, one of his teammates was about to respond to the journalist’s request for a prediction of their performance in the next international meet, Pan intervened and cautioned him, saying, “Stay low-key. Don’t say it out. Just stay low key.” When asked directly, his response was their expectation was nothing other than to do well what was their duty to do as athletes, and that was to train hard everyday. He embraces work-based success, not on boasting. This young man, who had just turned 20 on the day of winning his second gold medal in Paris, reminded his teammates and all youths to let their actions, not their tongues, do the talking. In sports, let your game do your talking. There is evident maturity beyond his age. This is all a force for good, quite refreshing in the face of the perilous decay in claims of “exceptionalism” from Western quarters. And really, quite commendable.
[The conniving West, once again, has manoeuvred the doping-slur into the conversation after the stunning performances by Chinese swimmers at the Paris 2024 Olympics. We shall address the doping issue in the next post, to appear on 16 September 2024.]
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, September 2024. All rights reserved.
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