Swimming, World Championships Doha 2024: People's Republic of China hold on to claim men's 4x200m freestyle relay title
People's Republic of China quartet Ji Xinjie, Wang Haoyu, Pan Zhanle, and Zhang Zhanshuo out-touched silver medallists Republic of Korea, while the USA took bronze in Doha, Qatar.
Swimming
The People's Republic of China swimmers Ji Xinjie, Wang Haoyu, Pan Zhanle, and Zhang Zhanshuo held on to win a thrilling men's 4x200m freestyle relay final at the Doha 2024 World Aquatics Championships on Friday (16 February).
The United States took an early lead from lane eight through Luke Hobson, which was increased to four metres by 200m medley silver medallist Carson Foster.
Hunter Armstrong maintained the lead for the first half of the third leg, but the 100m backstroke champion faded quickly, allowing China's Pan - the 100m freestyle world champion and world record holder - to close the gap to two metres.
The two nation's anchor swimmers, David Johnston of the US and Chinese 16-year-old Zhang, were almost neck-and-neck with 100m to go, when Korean 200m freestyle world champ Sunwoo Hwang came storming through to make it a thrilling three-way race for the title.
In the end, Zhang did just enough to seal the gold medal in 7:01.84, which was 0.10 seconds ahead of the Republic of Korea in silver, while the USA took for bronze.
"This is my personal highlight. I want to thank everyone on the team and what can I say? Anything is possible!" teenager Zhang said afterwards.
The men's 4x200m freestyle relay at Doha 2024 was a Paris 2024 Olympic qualifier. The final quota list is yet to be confirmed. As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.
Click here to see the official qualification system for each sport.