USA Swimming has revealed its roster for the 2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships.
- The 2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships will be held from August 24-27 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The list includes a number of the United States’ biggest names including National Age Group Record smashers and 15-year olds Maximus Williamson and Thomas Heilman, near-miss World Championship team member Erin Gemmell, and recent National Age Group Record breakers Daniel Diehl and Ilya Kharun.
Arguably the best team that the U.S. has ever sent to this meet, in a year where the U.S. won’t have a team at the World Junior Championships, one notable eligible name is missing: Lydia Jacoby.
The Olympic gold medalist in the 100 breaststroke finished 4th in that event at the US International Team Trials in April, missing the team for the World Championships. She is, however, age eligible for Junior Pan Pacs, and there is no criteria that would disqualify her.
Jacoby instead will travel with a group of current and future Texas Longhorns (including Gemmell, who is on this Junior Pan Pacs roster) to race in the Mare Nostrum series starting next week.
USA Swimming’s selection criteria chose the fastest 18 & unders (born in 2004 or later) from the US International Trials in April. They were limited to 20 boys and 20 girls on the roster, though the roster wound up with 20 girls and 21 boys. USA Swimming has not responded to SwimSwam’s request for more information on the decision to expand the roster.
The only other swimmer who we calculated to be eligible, but who are not on the roster, is Charlotte Hook on the girls’ side.
The roster will include 13-year old Kayla Han, who has broken a number of National Age Group Records as an 11-12 and who is already honing in on 13-14 records. She was the youngest qualifier for last summer’s US Olympic Trials.
There is also a brother-sister pair on the team: Alex and Aaron Shackell from the Carmel Swim Club in Indiana are both scheduled for the meet. That continues a family affair in international swimming: their father Nick represented Great Britain at the 1996 Olympic Games. Their mom, Ali, was also an All-American swimmer at Auburn.
The team will be led by Brent Arckey, who is the head coach of the Sarasota Sharks in Florida. He was the coach of Tokyo 2020 Olympic medalist in the 400 IM Emma Weyant, and of two members of this team: Gracie Weyant (Emma’s younger sister) and Michaela Mattes.
Besides Carmel, which also qualified Berit Berglund, and Sarasota Sharks, other clubs with multiple swimmers qualified include Greater Somerset County YMCA (Anna Moesch, Emily Thompson), SwimMAC Carolina (Ben Delmar, Matthew Lucky), Long Island Aquatic Club (Cavan Gormsen, Tess Howley), Metroplex Aquatics (Zhier Fan, Waston Nguyen – both male 100 breaststrokers), Tide Swimming (Kayla Wilson, Bobby Dinunzio), and New Albany Aquatic Club (Spencer Aurnou-Rhees, Hudson Williams).
While many top juniors, like Katie Ledecky, surpassed this meet by the time they were good enough for this meet, other big stars used this as a pathway to senior international success. That includes swimmers like Michael Andrew, Olivia Smoliga, Torri Huske, Luca Urlando, and Alex Walsh, who are all Junior Pan Pacs alumni.
At the last edition of the Junior Pan Pacific Championships in 2018, the U.S. led the medal tally with 54, including winning 27 gold medals in 35 events. Australia was 2nd with 4 golds among 13 medals, while Japan won 23 total medals.
Canada (2 golds, 12 total), China (1 gold, 2 total), and New Zealand (0 gold, 1 total) also medaled at that meet.
2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships U.S. Roster | |||
Women’s Team | |||
Name | Event(s) | Hometown | Club* |
Berit Berglund | 100 BK | Carmel, Ind | Carmel Swim Club |
Lily Christianson | 50 FR | Osceola, Ind . | Irish Aquatics |
Jillian Cox | 800 FR | Cedar Park, Texas | Longhorn Aquatics |
Piper Enge | 100 BR | Mercer Island, Wash . | Bellevue Club Swim Team |
Erin Gemmell | 200/400 FR | Potomac, Md . | Nation’s Capital Swim Club |
Cavan Gormsen | 400 FR | Wantagh, N .Y | Long Island Aquatic Club |
Kayla Han | 1500 FR/400 IM | La Mirada, Calif . | La Mirada Armada |
Bailey Hartman | 100 FL | Danville, Calif | Crow Canyon Sharks |
Tess Howley | 200 FL | Rockaway Park, N .Y | Long Island Aquatic Club |
Natalie Mannion | 200 BK | Boston, Mass . | Commonwealth Swimming |
Michaela Mattes | 800/1500 FR | Sarasota, Fla . | Sarasota Sharks |
Anna Moesch | 50/100 FR | Green Brook, N .J . | Greater Somerset County YMCA |
Kennedy Noble | 200 BK | Avondale, Ariz . . | Phoenix Swim Club |
Teagan O’Dell | 200 IM | West Covina, Calif | Irvine Novaquatics |
Julia Podkoscielny | 400 IM | Fort Lauderdale, Fla | Pine Crest Swimming |
Alex Shackell | 100/200 FL | Nashville, Tenn | Carmel Swim Club |
Emily Thompson | 200 IM | Basking Ridge, N .J | Greater Somerset County YMCA |
Maggie Wanezek | 100 BK | Brookfield, Wisc. | Elmbrook Swim Club |
Gracie Weyant | 200 BR | Sarasota, Fla . | Sarasota Sharks |
Kayla Wilson | 100/200 FR | Virginia Beach, Fla . | Tide Swimming |
Men’s Team | |||
Name | Event(s) | Hometown | Club* |
Spencer Aurnou-Rhees | 200 IM | Bexley, Ohio | New Albany Aquatic Club |
Ben Delmar | 200 BR | Charlotte, N .C . | SwimMAC Carolina |
Daniel Diehl | 100 BK | Cumberland, Md . | YMCA of Cumberland |
Diggory Dillingham | 50 FR | Bend, Ore . | Bend Swim Club |
Bobby Dinunzio | 1500 FR | Virginia Beach, Va | Tide Swimming |
Alec Enyeart | 400/800/1500 FR | Kansas City, Mo . | Tsunami Swim Team of K .C . |
Zhier Fan | 100 BR | Plano, Texas | Metroplex Aquatics |
Thomas Heilman | 100/200 FL, 50 FR | Crozet, Va | Cavalier Aquatics/Piedmont Family YMCA |
Keaton Jones | 200 BK | Gilbert, Ariz . | Swim Neptune |
Ilya Kharun | 100 FL | Las Vegas, Nev | Sandpipers Of Nevada |
Cooper Lucas | 400 IM | Keller, Texas | Lakeside Aquatic Club |
Matthew Lucky | (200 breast**) | Harrisburg, N .C . | SwimMAC Carolina |
Rex Maurer | 200/400 FR | Pasadena, Calif . | Rose Bowl Aquatics |
Henry McFadden | 200 FR | Haddonfield, N.J. | Jersey Wahoos |
Watson Nguyen | 100 BR | Plano, Texas | Metroplex Aquatics |
Josh Parent | 800 FR | Wilbraham, Mass | Bluefish Swim Club |
Aaron Shackell | 200 FL | Carmel, Ind | Carmel Swim Club |
Hudson Williams | 100 FR | Powell, Ohio | New Albany Aquatic Club |
Maximus Williamson | 200/400 IM | Southlake, Texas | North Texas Nadadores |
Kaii Winkler | 100 FR | Miami, Fla | Eagle Aquatics |
Josh Zuchowski | 100/200 BK | Jupiter, Fla . | Flood Aquatics Swim Team |
Head Coach: Brent Arckey (Sarasota Sharks) | |||
Assistant Coaches: Chuck Batchelor (SwimMAC Carolina), Tom Kleiboeker (Tsunami Swim Team of K .C .), Ginny Nussbaum (Long Island Aquatic Club), |
*Club affiliation when athlete had their qualifying swim.
**Matthew Lucky is listed as being in the 200/400 free on the official USA Swimming roster. We believe that this is an error, and he was selected in the 200 breast.
Events listed are the events each athlete qualified for the team in. Athletes may choose to swim additional events at the 2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships.
Alec Enyeart has 3 events including the 1500. Way to go Alec and Coach Tom from KC. Good luck to all.
Selection criteria is a joke, does it really make since to take placement over fastest times? If USA is trying to bring the fastest team then times are the answer over placment.
I think the idea is to bring a well rounded team.
If you can’t perform well in big meet, you can’t take the pressure. The fast time archiving in small meet doesn’t matter!
On the men’s side it looks like there are a few changes from the initial team based on the Team Time Trial meet results:
Quick question: Why did Piper Enge get the 100 Breast spot over Emma Webber? Emma won the B Final while Piper placed third in that heat at the Team Time Trial. I would have thought Emma was next up if Jacoby stepped down.
Because of the lack of transparency in this selection process, we won’t ever know for sure, but the implication is that Weber declined.
The meet is held two weeks into the academic year at Virginia, where she’ll be a freshman in the fall. We’ve seen that conflict before, and some choose school, some choose the meet.
Emma’s coach just confirmed to me that she declined because of school starting pre-meet.
Elizabeth Beisel had a rough day on Reddit. Lots of the criticism was unfair but someone in her camp should have been aware of the inevitable line of questioning, and also that you can’t get away with last second accounts asking pampered questions. There are guys over there who check that immediately.
How was the questioning unfair? “AMA” literally means “Ask me anything”, so it’s not like people were obligated to stick to swimming questions. I think she is just used to getting softball questions from swimming fans, and it perhaps came as a rude awakening to find out that, to the general public, she is known a lot more for lying about sexual harassment to win a reality show than anything she did in the pool.
So proud of Coach Lou and the Greater Somerset County Y swimmers #GoStorm
GSCY doesn’t seem too proud of Coach Lou as they have parted ways. Only lasted a year.
How’s does Maximus Williamson coach not get a invite to the coaching staff?
They have one swimmer swimming two events. USAS has a lot more options
If he can swim one event a day – 2018 PP schedule –
Day 1 200 FR – 1:50.6 or 100 Back 56.1
Day 2 400 IM 4:20.01
Day 3 200 IM 2:01.45
Day 3 200 Bk 1:58.75
Relay help – 50.6 100 free – with a relay take off he should be easily sub 50.
Being that he did the above times with only 20 long course practice prior to Trials. You can bet he’ll improve on all these times. Boy is on a mission.
If Lydia does swim Jr Pan pacs, her time could end up being faster than the winning time at worlds
I don’t think she’ll be 1:04 high this year.
She’s not tho.
It’s called “IF”…
Well, the comment wasn’t grammatically hypothetical so gives the impression that there’s still a chance she’ll compete which there isn’t.