China breaks U.S.' swimming grip

China ended the United States' 64-year unbeaten run in the men's 4x100 meters swimming medley at the Paris Olympics on Sunday.

Amid deafening cheers at La Defense Arena, a converted rugby stadium, the 100-meter freestyle world-record holder Pan Zhanle led his teammates Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang and Sun Jiajun to victory as they recorded a time of 3 minutes, 27.46 seconds.

On Wednesday, Pan's time of 45.92 in the freestyle was one of the fastest 100m freestyle splits in history.

"This is magic for me," Pan, who celebrated his 20th birthday on Sunday, said of the medley victory. "We make a good team and we managed to get a great result."

The United States took the silver, 0.55 seconds behind China, while France, powered by Leon Marchand, won the bronze, finishing 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 tonight," Ryan Murphy of the U.S. team told reporters.

France's Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, Leon Marchand, Maxime Grousset and Florent Manadou took bronze, 0.92 seconds behind China.

The result broke the United States' run of 10 successive gold medals in this event dating back to the Los Angeles 1984 Games.

It was Pan's second gold in Paris to go with his 100m freestyle triumph.