As is tradition when two major meets are lined up against each other in the swimming calendar, after 2 days of the 2018 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, we have enough results to start comparing times from one meet to those of the other.
Yes, we know that there’s a lot more countries in Europe than at Pan Pacs, and yes we know it’s not a perfect comparison, but the population of the Pan Pacs nations are way bigger (thanks, China), and are you telling me you DON’T want us to do the comparison? Didn’t think so.
The comparison lines up a tale of two meets.
Men’s Medal Table, Meet vs. Meet, After Day 2
| Men’s | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| Pan Pacs | 4 | 3 | 3 | 10 |
| Euros | 4 | 5 | 6 | 15 |
Women’s Medal Table, Meet vs. Meet, After Day 2
| Women’s | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| Pan Pacs | 7 | 4 | 5 | 15 |
| Euros | 1 | 4 | 3 | 9 |
In the men’s table, the two meets head-to-head would be even in gold medals, but Europe has a significant advantage in total medals. That includes two events (1500 free, 100 breast) that would be a hypothetical European sweep. That’s even with the 3rd-fastest European breaststroker in prelims, Britain’s Ross Murdoch, being bumped because he was also 3rd-fastest of his country.
In the women’s events, however, the Pan Paquers would win a hypoethcial 7 out of the 8 events they’ve raced so far, including a relay sweep in the 800.
These results sort of align more closely with “who’s swimming well” than maybe an overall critique of quality of the two regions. The European men, started with the Peaty World Record in the 100 breast, performed extremely well as a group at their meet, while the Pan Pacs men, especially the Americans, haven’t.
The Pan Pacs women, however, have done lots of best times and championship records (Ruck, Ledecky; and Ikee is also swimming well), while many of the female European stars were ‘off’ this year – Belmonte didn’t swim, Hosszu is under trained because of conflicts in her personal life, Sjostrom injured her thumb but wasn’t swimming at top form anyway.
In the combined medals table of men and women, it would be a near tie of 23 medals for Europe and 25 for Pan Pacs were it not for the extra bronze on the Cartwright/Dressel tie in the 100 free. Pan Pacs would still have more gold medals, however, on an 11-5 margin.
The big takeaway is that the attempts at the US vs. Australia/Europe Duel in the Pool meets were the wrong matchup. A made-for-TV, Pan Pacs vs. Euros, would be a way more competitive meet, and could draw a ton of interest.
Top 3 Times, Euros + Pan Pacs Combined
Men’s 100 free
- Kyle Chalmers, Australia, 48.00
- Alessandro Miressi, Italy, 48.01
- (TIE) Jack Cartwright, Australia/Caeleb Dressel, USA, 48.22
Men’s 200 free
- Duncan Scott, GBR, 1:45.34
- Townley Haas, USA, 1:45.56
- Andrew Seliskar, USA, 1:45.74
Men’s 1500 free
- Florian Wellbrock, Germany, 14:36.15
- Mykhailo Romanchuk, Ukraine, 14:36.88
- Gregorio Paltrinieri, Italy, 14:42.85
Men’s 100 back
- Ryan Murphy, USA, 51.94
- Kliment Kolesnikov, Russia, 52.53
- Evgeny Rylov, Russia, 52.74
Men’s 100 breast
- Adam Peaty, Great Britain, 57.10 (World Record)
- James Wilby, Great Britain, 58.64
- Anton Chupkov, Russia, 59.06
Men’s 200 fly
- Kristof Milak, Hungary, 1:52.79
- Daiya Seto, Japan, 1:54.34
- Tamas Kendedresi, Hungary, 1:54.36
Men’s 400 IM
- Chase Kalisz, USA, 4:07.95
- David Verraszto, Hungary, 4:10.65
- Max Litchfield, Great Britain, 4:11.00
Men’s 800 free relay
- USA, 7:04.36
- Australia, 7:04.70
- Great Britain, 7:05.32
Women’s 100 free
- Cate Campbell, Australia, 52.03
- Simone Manuel, USA, 52.66
- Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden, 52.93
Women’s 200 free
- Taylor Ruck, Canada, 1:54.44
- Rikako Ikee, Japan, 1:54.85
- Charlotte Bonnet, France, 1:54.95
Women’s 800 free
- Katie Lededcky, USA, 8:09.13
- Simona Quadarella, Italy, 8:16.45
- Ariarne Titmus, Australia, 8:17.07
Women’s 100 back
- Kylie Masse, Canada, 58.61
- Emily Seebohm, Australia, 58.72
- Kathleen Baker, USA, 58.83
W0men’s 100 breast
- Lilly King, USA, 1:05.44
- Yulia Efimova, Russia, 1:05.53
- Jessica Hansen, Australia, 1:06.20
Women’s 200 fly
- Boglarka Kapas, Hungary, 2:07.13
- Svetlana Chimrova, Russia, 2:07.33
- Hali Flickinger, USA, 2:07.35
Women’s 400 IM
- Yui Ohashi, Japan, 4:33.77
- Fantine Lesaffre, France, 4:34.17
- Ilaria Cusinato, Italy, 4:35.05
Women’s 800 free relay
- Australia, 7:44.12
- USA, 7:44.37
- Canada, 7:47.28
Mixed Medley Relay
- Australia, 3:38.91
- Great Britain, 3:40.18
- Japan, 3:40.98
Jessica Hansen did a 1.06.20 in the 100 breast makes her 3rd ahead of Ruta
Good catch. Updating now.
Whoever is reading this, please update this with times from Asian games
Would be nice to have a aggregate of best times from the us nationals (heats and finals), euros (heats, semis and finals) and pan pacs (heats and finals)
This is super interesting. Thank you!
In some events, US Nats would stack up better against Euros than PPS.
In PanPacs vs Europe meet, PanPacs will always trounce Europe. In current Pan Pacs, China didn’t send their top swimmers, South Korea and South Africa didn’t even send a single swimmer.
They could make it just the actual Pacific rim countries? So China, SA and Korea couldn’t compete.
I think a straight US vs Europe Ryder Cup style shootout would be better though, particularly given made for TV probably won’t include distance events.
It would be great, but there’s historically been some difficulty getting Europe to field a team anywhere near its full strength in the dual in the pool contests.
China and Korea are both pacific rim countries… as is Russia. Which would be an awesome championship.
China is right on the Pacific Rim.
Still, Pacific Rim countries (USA, Japan, Australia, China) would trounce Europe anytime.
I would like to see a Europe Medley Relay against Pacific Rim.. might well be Europe up (If it was a 4×200 medley Europe)
I would consider Europe the clear favorite in mens medley relay. Peaty would gain 1.5 seconds, in freestlye its equal, in back Kolesnikov would lose about 0.5 s and there is no way that Codia/Guy/Milak would lose 1 second against Dressel.
I think Europe would lose against USA/Japan/Australia/China, but not by a landslide. We saw in the article that its currently even and China doesnt have too much to bring to the table currently apart from womens distance free, womens 200 fly and Sun Yang.
I think the only events where it had an effect so far are womens 800 free, womens 200 fly and mens 200 fly. Van der Burgh wouldnt have been fast enough to beat Chupkov and Le Clos wouldnt have been fast enough to beat Miressi in the 100 free.
Of course the idea of having a Europe vs. World competition seems a bit odd anyway. Maybe something like Europe vs. USA vs. Asia + Australia would be closer.
I think it should be US v the world. The US are far & away the best swimming nation in the world. This would be the only fair contest.
Women’s doesn’t surprise me; USA/CAN/AUS have dominant female squads. Surprised by European men though – They really put on a show of strength at Euros.
Especially distance freeand breaststroke. The sheer domination of the Europeans in these events that the best pan pac swimmer wouldn’t even medal and in the distance not by a long shot
At some point, US Swimming might want to schedule trials meets 8-10 weeks before championship meets. Just a thought that no one’s ever had before…
Why? History has shown that at meets that matter to USA Swimming and the USOC (i.e. the Olympics, the Olympics and the Olympics) the window they use works better than the window used by the rest of the world. With college swimming, that 8-10 week window would create too many short training windows for long term success.
Well, trying to hold a taper across two meets that are close together doesn’t work for a lot of people, especially male sprinters. College seasons could adapt schedules to make it work.
Tell that to the US’s olympic success. I do think that these meets were far to close together with <2 weeks between
Plus they decided to have the team camp in California and waited 5 days before the meet started to hop on a plane.
Small time frames can and have worked for the US, but within reason. As long as they have several weeks like they do between trials and Olympics. But the narrow window between Nats and Pan Pacs is crazy tight. Swimmers from other countries were already in Japan whilst the US Nationals were taking place. They didn’t fly across 8 times zones until 5 days before the meet…and they lose a day on the way. Not an excuse…but lest’s be honest… that’s not ideal.
longer window = shorter longcourse training season for a lot of these athletes. They’ve decided that in non-olympic years it’s more important to have that longer period of training longcourse than it is to have the “perfect” double taper. This is pan-pacs, the least important international championship meet of the cycle. It’s ok to punt on it a little bit if you think it maximizes your success in the olympic years. I think that whatever they’re doing has worked so far, and we shouldn’t get too caught up in the moment cuz we don’t love the pan-pac times.