INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Men's 100-meter freestyle swimming world record holder Pan Zhanle stood out at four times that distance by winning the men's 400-meter
freestyle gold medal at China's National Swimming Championships in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, on Saturday.Clocking a
personal-best time of 3:45.34, Pan beat a field packed with opponents, including former Olympic gold medalist Sun Yang
Pan finished third in the preliminaries, and swam in the third lane in the final next to Fei Liwei, who posted the top time in qualifying,
as well as Sun.Pan led after the first 100 meters, with Fei closely behind and Sun in third place
The 20-year-old fell behind Fei around the 250-meter mark, before surging back to reclaim first place over the final 50 meters and grab the
Fei settled for silver and Sun ended up with bronze."I didn't expect to win this race," Pan said
"This is a surprise for me, because I did not go through systematic training for long distance races recently, so I think this victory is
definitely a boost for my confidence.""I'm really happy to be here, as this event is top level nationwide, and I'm happy that I can still
swim with the youngsters," Sun said
"I don't care about winning or losing that much now, as my current mentality is to swim for myself and my family, and I don't want to let
myself down after 20 years in the pool
Now my opponents are a lot younger than me, but mentally, I see myself as a young swimmer as well."In the women's 400-meter freestyle, Li
Bingjie shattered the Asian record after breaking the four-minute barrier
The 23-year-old touched the wall first in 3:59.99 to refresh the continental mark of 4:1.08, which she set two years ago, by 1.09 seconds.
