Pan Zhanle's grandfather, Jiang Handong's house, was the place where his family received condolences from leaders and media interviews. 'He's training outside and rarely comes back. As soon as I came home, I stayed with my grandfather. A staff member of the local community told our reporter that because Pan Zhanle's grandparents often participated in community activities for the elderly, he knew that they had a grandson who practiced swimming at home. But when I really realized that he was practicing well, it was time for the Asian Games in Hangzhou last year. Including this year's Paris Olympics, the Municipal Sports Bureau issued a notice in advance, asking the community to organize a group to watch the games, otherwise they would not know how to deal with the birth of an Olympic champion.
The community rented a small theater nearby, and the men's 100m freestyle final at the Paris Olympics was a time when people couldn't sleep at half past four in the morning Beijing time. Jiang Handong, an 86-year-old grandfather, wore a white stand-up collar sweatshirt and went to watch the game with Pan Zhanle's father Pan Jianxian and enlightenment coach Ye Xin, he told this magazine that from the eve of the game to the afternoon after winning the championship, he only slept less than 2 hours, but now he is still in good spirits, and if it were not for his family and the community, he could continue to talk for several hours.
Pan Zhanle's father Pan Jianxian and grandfather Jiang Handong (right) (photo by Cai Xiaochuan)
Jiang Handong played a particularly important role in Pan Zhanle's initiation stage of swimming. Ye Xin is the coach of Wenzhou Youth Swimming School, and he was selected into the "seedling selection class" when Pan Zhanle was in kindergarten, "At that time, he had zero foundation and couldn't even hold his breath." Ye Xin recalled to this magazine that he saw that the child had some characteristics of the preliminary selection of swimming materials, such as being tall and having good flexibility in the ankle joint, but he was not the only one with these conditions, "At the beginning, I learned swimming style for three months, took lessons three times a week, and then had to take classes six times a week. ”
Before Pan Zhanle really entered the sports school career, he relied on his grandfather Jiang Handong, who was in his 60s, to pick up and drop off every time during the six or seven kilometers from his home to the swimming school. Later, Pan Zhanle went to Zhejiang Sports Vocational and Technical College, Jiang Handong took the green train from Wenzhou at 23 o'clock every Saturday, arrived in Hangzhou at 4:20 a.m. the next day, waited for two hours, took the first bus to the school to see his grandson, and then caught the train back to Wenzhou at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
10-year-old Pan Zhanle won gold at the Provincial Games
"Later, he went less and became busy." Jiang Handong began to decorate the house with furnishings related to his grandson. In February, after 19-year-old Pan Zhanle broke the world record in the men's 100m freestyle at the FINA World Championships in Doha, local media in Wenzhou came to Jiang Handong's home and photographed the various medals he hung on the boxy mosquito net. But now he's hanging the medal on the wall near the end of the bed, "It's so heavy, the nets are torn crooked."
Medals won by Pan Zhanle (photo by Cai Xiaochuan)
Before Pan Zhanle became a household name overnight, he had actually achieved amazing results. At the FINA World Championships in Doha in February this year, Pan Zhanle swam 46.80 seconds in the men's 4✖️100m freestyle relay final, breaking the world record in the men's 100m freestyle.
But that doesn't seem to have stirred up enough noise at home. As traditional European and American sports, swimming and track and field have the heaviest weight and influence in the sports world. It is in this sense that at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, when Su Bingtian stood on the final course of the 100-meter run, we were so excited. Similar to the 100-meter dash in track and field, the freestyle is the most technical and speed of the four swimming styles, and the men's 100-meter freestyle has always been considered the "100-meter flyer" battle in the water. If we are excited for Su Bingtian to stand on the final track of the men's 100m run at the Olympics, then Poon Chin-lok not only won the gold medal in the pool in February this year, but also broke the world record. However, at the time, this result did not give him the attention to match the land contention.
This reflects the downturn in the domestic sports market in the past two years, and also shows the uncertainty generated by the fierce competition in swimming events.
I heard the name Pan Zhanle for the first time in 2022, and I heard from a friend who was doing sports industry consulting that some sponsors asked him about this young man, and I wondered if there was any value in signing a contract. At that time, Pan Zhanle swam 47.65 seconds in the 100-meter freestyle at the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, tying the national record held by Ning Zetao and bravely breaking the 48-second mark. At the National Swimming Championships in May 2023, he swam another 47.22 seconds, breaking the Asian record and becoming the twelfth fastest swimmer in human history.
The friend who did the consultation told me that even though Pan Zhanle had surpassed Ning Zetao's victory at the World Championships in Kazan that year, he still couldn't give the sponsor an answer. Times are no longer the same, and now there is Romania's talented athlete Popovich, who is the same age as Pan Zhanle but has already won the world championship, and Popovich has already broken the world record when Pan Zhanle first showed his head on the world stage.
As Zhang Yufei said in an interview before the trip, when she feels that her performance is more stable, there will always be European and American athletes who come out with a better result, which makes her suffer and pressure all the time. Therefore, in this Olympic Games, our original estimate of at least 3-5 gold medals in swimming was ruthlessly extinguished by reality.
But yesterday Pan Zhanle defeated Popovich and broke the world record he set last year. In an era when fast swimsuits have been said goodbye to and countries are desperately trying to improve their swimming skills with mathematical analysis, in a shallow pool where no results are recognized, Pan Zhanle has surpassed everyone and the past, which is shocking. At the same time, this gold medal also gave a great boost to the Chinese swimming team, which was in a sluggish state in this Olympic Games.
AI is dominating the human world, and at this time, we should appreciate the beauty of the traditional challenge to the limits of the human body, and we need this strength to fight against AI, be down-to-earth, and live a living life. That's why we need sports icons. In this sense, Pan Zhanle's Olympic title in the 100m freestyle and his ability to swim faster and more steadily in the future have made him the most representative.
But whether he can become a super idol like Yao Ming, Liu Xiang and Li Na in the past, bringing us the power of excitement and excitement that has lasted for several years, still needs more off-the-field conditions. When there is still a national dispute in sports, Yao Ming used the wisdom and bearing to easily resolve challenges, Liu Xiang used the publicity and self-confidence of others, and Li Na used the heartiness and freedom of contempt and confinement, without losing grace and dignity, to make us feel the value of sports competitions. It's about the triumph of sport itself, not about one person representing one country to defeat another, or defeating a group of so-called "adversaries". Due to some historical reasons, in the swimming event, the current Chinese athletes have been treated unfairly, and athletes need to think about the philosophy of sports itself, which requires understanding and the accumulation of life experience.
After Pan Zhanle won the championship, witticisms belonging to the style of self-media soon appeared on the Internet: "Bolt on the ground, Pan Zhanle in the water." "The value of his championship is recognized, and I sincerely hope that his future will go further than this quip.