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
After 3 days of competition at the 2018 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, the United States still holds a margin in both gold medals (11) and total medals (28), but the mood among the fans of the American team is far from positive.
In 5 relays so far at the meet, the United States has won 1 gold, 2 silvers, and a bronze. With just the men’s and women’s medley relays left to swim, they would need gold medals in both to avoid becoming the first U.S. Pan Pacs team since 2002 to win less than 3 medals.
The American men’s DQ in the 400 free relay, after breaking a championship record no-less, was the icing on the cake for the team’s relay performance at this meet. The DQ itself overshadowed the fact that Caeleb Dressel split just 48.76 on the leadoff leg, which is exactly 1.50 seconds slower than he split on the leadoff of last year’s relay at the World Championships – which broke the American Record.
In the two remaining relevant races, the Americans have a double shot at gold (and avoiding a 1-relay-win meet). In the men’s medley, nobody at this meet has a breaststroker so far ahead as to expose the Americans’ weakness on that leg. Ryan Murphy has raced well this week, and of Dressel’s swims, his 100 fly was his best so far (though, the quality of his swims seems to be lagging as the meet goes on).
The American women have a shot too, with the best breaststroker (Lilly King) in the field. Japan probably doesn’t have enough to go around Rikako Ikee to catch the Americans, but the Australians have been swimming well, and have the better 100 backstroker and freestyler at the meet so far. The battle for gold will come down to whether Cate Campbell‘s anchor is closer to the all-time-best 50.93 she put down on the mixed medley anchor (the whole field was women, so no drafting influence), or the 52.0 that she swam in the individual race.
That relay misfortune for the Americans was to the positive for Brazil, as it bumped their men up to the top of the podium and gave them their first gold medal of the meet.
The U.S. has now won 44% of the gold medals, which is right on pace with where they were in 2014 (but historically low), but their total medal percentage has fallen to 37.3%, which is well 2014 (39.8% of the medals).
Pan Pacs Medals Table After Day 3 (Saturday)
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  United States |
11 | 9 | 8 | 28 |
| 2 |  Australia |
6 | 10 | 3 | 19 |
| 3 |  Japan |
5 | 5 | 8 | 18 |
| 4 |  Canada |
2 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
| 5 |  Brazil |
1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Total | 25 | 26 | 24 | 75 | |
Day 3 Medalists
Women’s 400 free
- Katie Ledecky, USA – 3:58.50
- Ariarne Titmus, Australia – 3:59.66
- Leah Smith, USA – 4:04.23
Men’s 400 free
- Jack McLoughlin, Australia – 3:44.20
- Mack Horton, Australia – 3:44.31
- Zane Grothe, USA – 3:45.37
Women’s 100 fly
- Rikako Ikee, Japan – 56.08 (Championship/Japanese Record)
- Kelsi Worrell Dahlia, USA – 56.44
- Emma McKeon, Australia – 56.54
Men’s 100 fly
- Caeleb Dressel, USA – 50.75
- Jack Conger, USA – 51.32
- Vinny Lanza, Brazil – 51.44
Women’s 200 IM
- Yui Ohashi, Japan – 2:08.16 (Championship Record)
- Sydney Pickrem, Canada – 2:09.07
- Miho Teramura, Japan – 2:09..86
Men’s 200 IM
- Chase Kalisz, USA – 1:55.40
- Mitch Larkin, Australia – 1:56.21
- Kosuke Hagino, Japan – 1:56.66
Women’s 400 free relay
- Australia – 3:31.58 (Championship Record)
- USA – 3:33.45
- Canada – 3:34.07
Men’s 400 free relay
- Brazil – 3:12.02
- Australia – 3:12.53
- Japan – 3:12.54 (Japanese Record)
The races have been great in general but I wish more countries parricipates more fully especially in the relays .. countries like South Africa Korea (who’s hosting the next worlds and yet not participating) and China and even New Zealand would have added more spice to the events
You can’t expect full Asian countries participation when Pan Pacs is held only one week before Asian Games. I doubt Japan would have sent their top team had they not hosted this Pan Pacs.
Great opening paragraph Braden! I think it’s important to publish how the fans are feeling. USA Swimming is responsible for building a brand and fan base. Given the lack of $ in swimming compared to other sports, the poor performance at this meet particularly with so many marquee names turning pro and signing suit deals is a really bad look for the brand overall.
In the future I would suggest that at major meets like Pan Pacs teams should only be required to go in a particular order if race officials tell them what that order is. As bad as it looks that a US coach screwed up, it looks even worse that the race officials did not immediately call a DQ if they were going to call one at all. If you plan to enforce race order, make sure the swimmers know the order. If they only enforced the rules because another team checked up on this hoping to get a team ahead of them DQed, that also looks bad.
The officials (and media) should know to come and check swimswam chat for breaking news about DQs and other violations before any result is made official The US officials had no choice but to own up to wrong order and force their own DQ. Otherwise they would have been complicit in ‘falsifying official results’ (team order, splits) at an international competition which is much more of a bad look than a team protesting the rules have not been followed..
Hoosiers!!!!
But that one Gold though? That was a great race!
I appreciate all the outcry from the keyboard warriors here in the past 24 hours, who apparently can all coach better than USA’s current coaching staff. After all, bad performance has nothing to do with poor U.S. Nationals scheduling, jet lag, environmental factors, primary club/university training since 2017, or individual athlete choices. I even find it odd that no one questions the adult relay members who themselves may not have double or triple checked their own relay order.
I don’t think anybody here is putting 100% blame on the coaching staff and we can all agree that there are factors outside of both swimmer and coach that may be impacting the results. But I think the question we need to ask is how much of the blame can/should be attributed to each factor. Dressel wasn’t on at nationals at all really. I think a lot of us were hoping he just wasn’t tapered and would pick up speed at pan pacs but that really hasn’t happened. Conger hasn’t had the type of 200 fly performance we would have hoped for from either meet. All of our backstrokers did well, but they were all swimming fast at nationals too.… Read more »
I doubt that there are many posters who can coach better, but I will bet that most of them have the skill set to ensure that the relay order submitted to the officials matches up with the relay order that they tell the swimmers to swim.
I would not want swimmers to worry themselves about such things. I want them focused on their swimming, on their starts, etc.
It’s better for the USA to not deliver now than at Worlds(or Olympics). I have no doubt the team will bounce back.
Good for Japan doing Asian record and great for Brazil doing good without the two top dogs(Cielo and Fratus).A young name(Breno Correia) probably will knock some member of the current 4x100free team out in near future.
Poor timing and preparation blame USA swimming for scheduling nats and Pan pacs so close then essentially arriving too late to prepare meaningfully.
Poor coaching decisions we have exhaustively docunstes the last three days.