PARIS: The United States’ 64-year unbeaten run in the men’s 4x100m medley ended at the Paris Olympics on Sunday (Aug 4) as China swept to a seismic win at La Defense Arena.
Amid deafening cheers at the converted rugby stadium, the 100m freestyle world record holder Pan Zhanle brought China home with an outrageous swim as he, Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang and Sun Jiajun won in a time of three minutes, 27.46 seconds.
Caeleb Dressel and the Americans took silver, 0.55 seconds behind the Chinese, while a Leon Marchand-powered France grabbed the bronze, finishing nearly a second behind.
“Today China was just a little bit better. I think all of us going in, we’re putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to be great out there … So hats off to China, they did a great race tonight,” American Ryan Murphy told reporters.
The US did not compete at the 1980 Moscow Games due to a boycott, but they had never been beaten in the men’s medley final dating back to the inaugural event at the 1960 Rome Games.
Pan will take enormous credit for defeating them as he celebrated his 20th birthday in style, rocketing to the wall in 45.92 seconds.
“That was a monster split for Pan … So that’s a pretty cool birthday present,” Hunter Armstrong said.
“This is my first time anchoring a relay for Team USA and it carries a bit of pressure, but we each just get in and we do the best we can.”
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