Pan Zhanle successfully defended his men’s 100-meter freestyle title at the Asian Games on Sunday, narrowly defeating South Korea’s Kim Youngbeom at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. Pan touched the wall in 47.61 seconds, edging out Kim by just 0.04 seconds. Kim earned the silver medal with a time of 47.65, while his compatriot Hwang Sunwoo claimed bronze in 47.79, completing a strong showing for the Republic of Korea.
Although Pan’s winning time fell short of his own Games record of 46.97 set at Hangzhou in 2022 and remained well behind his 46.40 world record achieved at the Paris 2024 Olympics, it marked his fastest performance over the distance since that Olympic final. After a challenging 2025 season—highlighted by missing the 100m freestyle final at the World Championships in Singapore—Pan expressed cautious satisfaction with his return to form. “I was a little short of what I expected. I wanted to do better and swim faster but first of all I am happy to have won,” he said. “This was my best result in the past two years. It was still below what I expected but I will take it step by step. I believe I can swim faster in the future.”
China’s Zhang Zhanshuo finished fourth with a time of 48.23, followed by Japan’s Murasa Tatsuya and Matsumoto Katsuhiro who touched the wall in 48.40 and 48.50 respectively.
Meanwhile, China’s teenage prodigy Yu Zidi captured the women’s 200m butterfly crown in a Games record time of 2:05.08. The 13-year-old led the race from start to finish, improving upon Zhang Yufei’s previous record of 2:05.57 set at Hangzhou in 2022. Yu, who makes her Asian Games debut this year and will turn 14 next month, acknowledged room for improvement despite the record-breaking performance. “It was only so-so. I hope I can swim even faster. I improved my time by 0.9 seconds here and I believe I will perform better next time,” she said, outlining technical adjustments she plans to make, including better head positioning, longer reach, and enhanced leg movement.
In other developments at the Games, Thailand emerged as a dominant force in teqball, a sport making its Asian Games debut with five gold medals at stake. The host nation claimed three of those titles. South Korea’s Lee Jun-suk captured the men’s singles gold, reflecting on the hard training leading up to the event: “I am so happy I could die right now. We just prepared for six months. We prepared really hard. I wanted to be a medallist but I didn’t imagine this situation.”
The swimming events at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre will continue through September 25. The men’s 100m freestyle will also be contested at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where Pan is expected to defend his Olympic title.