Australia’s Chalmers and China’s Pan in peace talks

Kyle Chalmers says he’s held peace talks with China’s Pan Zhanle in the aftermath of their duel in the Paris Olympic pool.

The pair have been in direct contact since their 100m freestyle showdown on Wednesday night when Pan broke his world record to win gold and Chalmers claimed silver.

After the race, Pan told Chinese media that Chalmers had snubbed him – comments which bemused the Australian swim star.

Chalmers says he’s received “a huge amount of grief which is obviously very challenging to deal with mentally” on social media since the medal race.

But the freestylers have since exchanged text messages and talked in the Paris warm-up pool to clear the air.

Pan has offered to show Chalmers around Shanghai when they swim at a world cup meet in the Chinese city next year.

“I don’t think there was any animosity ever,” Chalmers said on Saturday.

“From my point of view, I spoke to him in the marshalling room before the race.

“After the race, I went straight over, shook his hand in the pool; on the podium, shook his hand.

“And then we had a great conversation before we started that cool down, just in regards to how great the race was and the Shanghai world cup.

“And again, he just said about me being his idol and how much of an honor it was for him to swim against me and he never thought that was possible.

“All of our conversations we’ve ever had have been positive, from the world championships last year through this year.”

Chalmers said he was eager to extend his rivalry with Pan.

“I know that I have done everything I possibly can to be respectful, like I am to every one of my competitors and I have been over the years,” he said.

“I have had some amazing relationships with guys that I’ve raced against and race with, and I think this will be no different.

“I really look forward to progressing our relationship and challenging each other and having some amazing battles in the pool over the years. It’s one-all now.

“Last year we raced at the world championships and I got the best of him but this year he got the best of me.

“So I look forward to taking it to round three next year.”

Chalmers said the past few days had been “a bit of a whirlwind.”

“It’s very hard, we both obviously don’t speak the same language… so it’s quite hard to talk,” he said.

“But again, from my point of view, I don’t have any issues.

“His race was amazing the other night.

“And I’m honored to be in the fastest race that has ever been swum in the 100 freestyle in history, it’s an incredible feat.”

Pan set a world record time of 46.40 seconds, slicing 0.4 seconds from his previous global benchmark set in January at the world championships in Doha, a meet Chalmers skipped.