Pan Zhanle of China poses with the medal after the awarding ceremony of the men's 100m freestyle final of swimming event at the World Aquatics Championships 2024 in Doha, Qatar, Feb. 15, 2024. (Xinhua/Luo Yuan)

Even with a glittering cast of star athletes skipping the meet, Team China's medal-laden campaign at the Doha swimming worlds served up a huge confidence boost for Paris 2024.

Five months out from the Games, the Chinese squad racked up seven gold medals and one world record at the first world championships to take place in the same year as the Olympics.

And while it wasn't yet the right time to peak, Chinese swimmers nonetheless threw down the gauntlet to their Olympic rivals in mightily impressive style.

Led by a crop of ambitious young swimmers, Team China stole the show at the Doha World Aquatics Championships — delayed a year due to the rescheduling of FINA events — by scooping impressive results in the absence of big-name swimmers from the United States and Australia, who opted to skip the meet to focus on their own pre-Olympic programs.

Sprint prodigy Pan Zhanle proved to be the biggest surprise in Doha after the 19-year-old broke the men's 100m freestyle world record with a time of 46.80 seconds in his leadoff leg of China's gold-winning 4x100m free relay on Feb 12. Four days later, the teen sensation claimed his first individual world championships gold, in the 100m free, having narrowly missed out on the podium twice in the same event with fourth-place finishes in 2022 and 2023.

Relatively unknown to the world before the Doha meet, Pan's meteoric rise, quietly launched at the 2022 worlds where his national record-tying swim (47.65) in the 100m semifinals was overshadowed by then world-record holder David Popovici's dominance, has propelled him into the international spotlight and fueled expectations that even better results could be on the way at this summer's Paris Olympics.

Powered by Pan, Team China won both men's free relays and the mixed 4x100m free relay. Combined with victory in the women's 4x200m free relay, it was the country's best collective result at the long-course worlds.

Another talented prodigy, Dong Zhihao, and his women's counterpart, Tang Qianting, claimed individual golds in the 200m and 100m breaststroke respectively to cement the rise of China's next-gen, joining accomplished swimmers such as reigning Olympic butterfly champion Zhang Yufei and breaststroke king Qin Haiyang, who both skipped the Doha meet, on a potential world-beating Paris 2024 squad.

Meanwhile, the team's surging teen power suggests Chinese swimming has a bright future beyond Paris 2024. Sixteen-year-old Zhang Zhanshuo produced a strong final 50m split to help secure the men's 4x200m free relay gold, while 14-year-old Gong Zhenqi, the youngest swimmer in Doha, kept up with her older rivals in the women's 4x200m free relay triumph.

"I feel like we now have to expand and redecorate our 'champion wall' at the national training base," Pan said of Team China's encouraging haul in Doha.

No flash in the pan

With superstars including Romania's Popovici, American duo Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky, Canada's Summer McIntosh and Ariarne Titmus of Australia all absent, Team China's Doha results should be kept in perspective. Nevertheless, the improvement in the young swimmers' personal bests shows they are undoubtedly trending in the right direction.

Pan, who makes up for a relatively thin build with a super efficient stroke and velocity, said he feels like he has not yet reached his limit with his world-record time.

"With all the effort I've been putting in, it just happened naturally even though I did not expect to do it here in this way," Pan said of his stunning leadoff leg on Feb 12 at the Aspire Dome.

"The first international meet in the Olympic year went quite well for me, providing me with a great confidence boost.

"My goal, however, is to swim faster without setting a limit. I'd like to further improve the world record, to keep it out of reach of any other opponents," added Pan, who first developed as a distance swimmer in the junior ranks.

Born in Zhejiang province, a renowned swimming stronghold in East China, Pan has always been among the hardest-training athletes through the ranks, according to his junior coach, Wang Shi.

"We would punish other kids by pushing them back into the water to swim more, while we actually had to stop him from swimming as a punishment once he made mistakes," Wang recalled.

Already displaying world-class technique in his starts, turns and finishes, Pan still has room to improve in areas such as strength conditioning and power in order to become a more consistent sprinter, reckons his national-team coach, Zheng Kunliang.

Pan's second sub-47 race in Doha, following his 46.97 triumph at last year's Asian Games in Hangzhou, which made him just the third swimmer in history to crack the 47-second mark in a textile suit, has proved he's on the right path to unleash his full speed, Zheng added.

For most observers, Pan's Doha campaign was unexpected, even feeling like it came out of nowhere. However, for those who have followed his progress since his worlds debut in 2022 in Budapest, this was definitely no flash in the pan — it just happened ahead of schedule.

"I still have to work harder in the lead-up to Paris 2024 and produce my best swim against the world's best at the Olympics," said Pan.

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