DOHA - Doha ushered in the opening day of the swimming events on Sunday night, marked by Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle setting a new men's 100m freestyle world record.

In the men's 4x100m freestyle relay, Pan clocked 46.80 seconds, surpassing Romania's David Popovici's previous record of 46.86 seconds.

"I'm extremely happy. Breaking a world record brings joy to me, proving that the training has paid off," the 19-year-old remarked. "My goal now is to go even faster. I can't predict how fast I can swim, but I hope my record won't be broken too soon."

Inspired by Pan's show, China's subsequent swimmers Ji Xinjie, Zhang Zhanshuo and Wang Haoyu delivered stellar performances, ultimately securing China's first gold medal in swimming events with a time of three minutes and 11.08 seconds.