China ended the United States' 64-year unbeaten run in the men's 4x100 meters medley at the Paris Olympics as a quartet led by Pan Zhanle swept to a seismic win at the end of a swimming competition that had been clouded by controversy.
Amid deafening cheers, 100m freestyle world record-holder Pan 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, while a Leon Marchand-powered France grabbed bronze, 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," American Ryan Murphy said.
The US did not compete at the 1980 Moscow Games due to a boycott, but they had never been beaten in the 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.
Chinese swimmers have been under intense scrutiny since revelations in April that 23 of them tested positive for a banned heart medication before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics but were allowed to compete.
The World Anti-Doping Agency accepted the findings of a Chinese investigation that the results were due to contamination from a hotel kitchen, and an independent review backed Wada's handling of the case.
However, Britain's Adam Peaty said he had no faith in the system after his team came fourth. "I don't want to paint a whole nation or a whole group of people with one brush. I think it's very unfair," he said. "But there has been two cases and I think it's very disappointing."
But Dressel accepted the result, saying the Chinese "were faster - simple as that."
REUTERS
Chinese swimmers celebrate their medley relay win. XINHUA
