Australia’s Lani Pallister handed Katie Ledecky a stunning defeat in the 800 metres freestyle at the Pan Pacific Championships, while American Kate Douglass twice broke the 50m freestyle world record on a dramatic final day in Irvine, California.
Pallister led from start to finish and touched the wall in 8 minutes 6.1 seconds, leaving Ledecky, the overwhelming favourite, to settle for silver in 8:07.26. The result ended Ledecky’s unbeaten run in the 800m at major international meets, a streak dating back to her Olympic gold in 2012 as a 15-year-old. Since then she had collected 13 international golds in the event, including four Olympic crowns and seven world titles.
Ledecky had lost to Summer McIntosh in a minor domestic meeting in Florida in February 2024, but she retained her hold with a razor-thin victory over Pallister and McIntosh at last year’s World Championships in Singapore, where she insisted “I don’t lose 800s”. Pallister, who claimed her first career win over Ledecky in the 400m freestyle earlier this week before finishing second behind her in the 1,500m, proved that rule can be broken as the 29-year-old American prepares for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
After her victory, Pallister punched the water in delight and received a hug from Ledecky across the lane rope. “Katie is such a dominant force,” said Pallister, who finished the week with gold in the 200m, 400m and 800m free and the 4x200m free relay. “Without her, we wouldn’t have women’s distance swimming in the place we’re at the moment. To be part of that story at the moment [it’s] pretty much all because we get to chase Katie.”
Douglass, meanwhile, firmly established herself as the one to chase in the 50m freestyle. She broke the world record in the heats with a time of 23.49 seconds, then lowered it to 23.19 in the final, slicing three-tenths of a second off her earlier mark. She finished a whopping 55-hundredths of a second ahead of US teammate Gretchen Walsh, who had set a world record of 23.55 on June 28 in Rome, breaking the mark Douglass had set on June 19. Australia’s Meg Harris took bronze in 23.89.
Douglass returned less than half an hour later to claim silver in the 200m breaststroke, won by Canadian Alexanne LePage in 2:21.73. She capped her night by anchoring the US 4×100 medley relay team to gold in 3:50.43, 4.66 seconds ahead of Australia.
In other finals, Australian Jamie Jack won the men’s 50m freestyle in 21.35 seconds, while Zac Stubblety-Cook rallied from fourth at the final turn to take the men’s 200m breaststroke in 2:08.09, giving Australia another gold. Chinese Olympian Yu Yiting started the night with an upset of world record-holder Summer McIntosh in the 200m individual medley, leading most of the way and holding off the Canadian’s charge on the final freestyle leg to win in 2:07.45. McIntosh touched in 2:07.47, adding to her disappointing meet that included gold in the 400m IM but silver in the 200m free and a failure to make the championship final in the 400m free.
Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsushita completed a men’s medley double with a 200m victory in 1:56.02. Sam Short clocked an Australian record of 14:33.97 to add the 1,500m freestyle to his 400m and 800m golds. Short, who pulled off the same treble at the Commonwealth Games, finished 8.62 seconds ahead of Japan’s Kazushi Imafuku and said he was inspired by the world record of 14:26.79 set by Germany’s Johannes Liebmann at the European Championships in Paris on Saturday. American Bobby Finke, the two-time Olympic gold medallist whose world mark was broken by Liebmann, was third in 14:44.26.
The Pan Pacific Championships delivered a night of seismic shifts, with Pallister’s victory rewriting the script in women’s distance swimming and Douglass proving unbeatable in the splash-and-dash event on the final day of competition.
