On August 3, Beijing time, according to the United Kingdom "Guardian" report, Australia swimmer Chalmers was interviewed to respond and clarify his relationship with Chinese athlete Pan Zhanle. He made it clear that he had no hostility towards Pan Zhanle, and there was no discord between the two.

In the previous 100-meter freestyle final, Pan Zhanle easily won the championship with an excellent time of 46.40 seconds and broke the world record. His winning time was also more than one second ahead of the runner-up Chalmers. When Pan Zhanle won the gold medal, he revealed that on the first day of the 4×100 relay, he greeted Chalmers in the pool, and Chalmers ignored him.

However, this time, after Pan Zhanle won the championship, Chalmers interacted with him. Chalmers said in the interview: "We exchanged information, it was really great, I should go to the World Cup, the first stop is in Shanghai. He (Pan Zhanle) was looking forward to my arrival and wanted to show me around, which made me even more excited to go there. ”

"I don't think there's any animosity [between us]," Chalmers added, "From my point of view, I talked to him before the race, I shook hands with him in the pool and on the podium after the race, and then there were some nice exchanges."

At the 2023 FINA World Championships, Chalmers won the title, with Poon Chin-le finishing fourth at the time. And this time in the Paris Olympics, Pan Zhanle defeated Chalmers and won the gold medal. Chalmers said he expects this competition to continue in the coming years.

"I'm really looking forward to developing our relationship over the years, challenging each other and having some great competition in the pool. We're 1-1 now. Last year, we went to the World Championships and I beat him, but this year he surpassed me. So I'm looking forward to getting to the third round next year. ”

Chalmers said the language barrier could be one of the causes of misunderstandings. "We don't speak the same language, I don't know Chinese," Chalmers said, "but again, I don't have any problems [with him]." ”