2018 PAN PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, August 9 – Tuesday, August 14, 2018
- Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center, Tokyo, Japan
- Meet site
- Psych Sheet
- Start Lists
- Meet Results
Thanks to a monster medal count on Sunday, where the U.S. won 7 events (as compared to just 11 on the first 3 days combined), the Americans salvaged a historically-sound meet from the 2018 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. With still the open water events to come, the 18 gold medals are more than Team USA won in 2014, and the 43 medals are the same number.
That gives the Americans over half of the pool-swimming golds (they could dip below that if they win neither open water race) and 41% of the total medals, both of which are so far slightly better than 2014 (which in itself was a down year).
The 1999 team, which actually lost the medals table to Australia based on the traditional gold-silver-bronze sort (both countries had 13 golds, Australia had more bronze, US had more total medals), is still the low-water mark for the Americans at this meet.
U.S. Medal Counts By Year:
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | % of Golds | % of Total | |
| 2018 | 18 | 14 | 11 | 43 | 51.43% | 40.95% |
| 2014 | 16 | 13 | 14 | 43 | 44.44% | 39.81% |
| 2010 | 28 | 18 | 10 | 56 | 66.67% | 43.75% |
| 2006 | 26 | 18 | 4 | 48 | 72.22% | 44.04% |
| 2002 | 21 | 16 | 15 | 52 | 61.76% | 50.98% |
| 1999 | 13 | 10 | 12 | 35 | 39.39% | 36.46% |
| 1997 | 19 | 13 | 16 | 48 | 54.29% | 47.06% |
| 1995 | 15 | 16 | 10 | 41 | 44.12% | 40.20% |
| 1993 | 23 | 11 | 11 | 45 | 67.65% | 44.12% |
| 1991 | 25 | 13 | 19 | 57 | 73.53% | 55.88% |
| 1989 | 23 | 18 | 12 | 53 | 67.65% | 51.96% |
| 1987 | 14 | 13 | 7 | 34 | 43.75% | 35.42% |
| 1985 | 24 | 15 | 9 | 48 | 75.00% | 49.48% |
Note: medal counts may differ from ‘official’ counts, where non-Olympic events haven’t always been included. This tally is a best effort at including all races competed at the meets.
The Americans are guaranteed of winning their 5th-straight medals table at the meet, and to continue their perfect streak of having the most total medals.
Australia came away with from the pool with the most relay wins: taking all 3 women’s races (in Championship Records), plus the mixed medley. The American men won 2 relays, while Brazil’s win in the men’s 400 free relay (after the American DQ) was their first ever at this meet.
Final Pool Swimming Medals Table, 2018 Pan Pac Championships
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | United States | 18 | 14 | 11 | 43 |
| 2 | Australia | 8 | 12 | 7 | 27 |
| 3 | Japan | 6 | 7 | 10 | 23 |
| 4 | Canada | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| 5 | Brazil | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Total | 35 | 36 | 34 | 105 |
what bothers me the most about successful, record-setting foreign athletes – IS THEIR COMING TO AMERICA (Esp, our Colleges/Univ.) WHERE THEY GET FREE TRAINING AND THEN GO BACK TO THEIR COUNTRIES TO BEAT AMERICANS AT THESE MEETS, Damn It!! I truly feel we should NOT let them train in America’cause they are using American PAID FOR facilities and coaching which they NEVER PAY FOR ANYTHING!! If you check out most of those winning foreign athletes, you will find that many were trained at American expense – so keep the training for Americans and the we will WIN MORE MEDALS!!!
Just looking through foreign Olympic medalists from 2016….very, very few of them were training in the US at the time. There were 23 individual Olympic medals won by men in Rio…and Joseph Schooling is the only one I can count who was training in the US at the time.
Same story on the women’s side. Efimova was kind of probably training in the US at the time (2 silvers), Hosszu wasn’t but did for a few years in college (3 golds)….out of 26 foreign individual medalists.
I would bet that the net total of income that comes to our athletes from other countries (remember: Adidas and Arena are both European) through sponsorship money, prize money and travel coverage at meets… Read more »
Let me offer a suggestion about comparing USA and Australia. Historically the US has about 4 times as many swimming gold medals in the Olympics. Suppose we say the US should get 4 times as many gold medals. Obviously America performed poorly in the relays. Aside from the relays I believe swim swam predicted the USA would win 16 individual events wile the Australian would win 4–and while they were not exactly the same events that were predicted that is what happened. So the Australians did well on the relays, and the two countries were on par in the individual events.
Braden,
TM71 has made some very insightful observations about the questionable coaching and management of the USA Pan Pac Team. I am just a grunt masters swimmer who does not understand how things work. Accordingly, I would appreciate (and imagine other readers would also) an opinion/editorial analysis from Swimswam of what happened at Pan Pacs. From the training camp too far away, relay decisions, 4×100 men’s free debacle. This was the biggest meet of the year for the USA. Like they say, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. Thanks.
Imagine following any other sport and thinking, “Geez, my team might only be the best team in the world by 15 or 20 percent! We gotta figure things out!”
I love how its always the USA beat Australia…Hah
There are over 325million people in the USA and only 25million in Australia…the USA should beat Australia and by a lot more.
well life doesnt always work in accordance with numbers …..
In 1956 Australia won 8 out of 13 golds while the USA only won two.
Most people only gloat when they win. Of course I do not know you are Australian. Maybe you are an American doing a very strange kind of gloating after a win.
Just asking. Why is Brazil competing in the pan PACIFIC swimming championship? Last I looked Brazil does not border the PACIFIC ocean.
Pan Pacific sounds catchier than EOE (everyone outside Europe)?
It started as a championship for pacific countries, but broadened to accommodate countries that are ineligible for the European championships, commonwealth and asian games.
Does anyone know if the pool swimmers are staying in Japan until the open water races are over with or do they come home before they occur?
Pool swimmers coming home b4 open water.
Thanks
Considering the population of Australia at 25 million is around 1/13th of the US population I would say the Aussies had a great meet.
And in that respect Croatia ranked 126th in population had no business being in soccer’s wcup final. Population has nothing to do with finding talent and developing it.
TM1 that’s a ridiculous statement… there’s a reason China, USA and Russia finish high in the medal counts at major events….
But not India. Or Indonesia. Two of the countries you mention have large direct gov’t investment in Olympic sport. The other has facilities, coaches, youth sports, and a strong university structure. Sport funding and socio-economic factors are arguably just as important. Look at the UK’s difference in Olympic performance from the 90s to now. That big improvement hasn’t been down to a population explosion.
The problem with this comment is where it was made. It would be a fine comment to make on an Aussie site, but this is a US site. Anyway I hope the Aussies continue to think they have great meets when they win less than a third as many individual events as the US.
I think you’d be surprised at how diverse our reading audience is geographically. Our staff too: we have writers spread across the planet and report on news from the entire world. We also do it in six different languages, at present. We certainly don’t think of ourselves as a “U.S. site.”
And they wonder why people think Americans are self centred….
That’s a very valid point. It is quite impressive. But taking that thought further if Australia had 13x the population they have now it wouldn’t result in 13 times the medals. For a number of reasons (not just entry limitations) but also because there is a bit of a law of diminishing returns at play. So populous nations are rarely going to fare well on a per capita basis even under the most optimum of conditions. Nonetheless Australia definitely achieves a lot in the sport for it’s population and that’s a testament to the culture and standing of the sport there. Hungary is another impressive example, where aquatic sports (water polo too) hold a high place. Australia seems like an… Read more »