New Zealand swimmer Erika Fairweather has come home from the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships with three bronze medals, equalling a national mark that has stood for 12 years.
The 22 year old from Dunedin took the last of them in the women’s 800m freestyle on the final night of the meet in Irvine, California. Swimming New Zealand reported that she went through the 400m mark in 4min 7.27s before being pushed hard by American Katie Grimes over the closing laps, edging ahead again at the finish to take third in 8min 18.81s. The margin between third and fourth was 0.29 seconds. It was the second fastest swim of her career and a little over a second outside Lauren Boyle’s national record.
That medal equalled Boyle’s record for the most individual medals won by a New Zealand swimmer at a single Pan Pacific championships, set in 2014. Boyle had been the only New Zealander to manage three at one of these meets.
The race itself was won by Australia’s Lani Pallister in a championship record of 8min 6.10s, ahead of American Katie Ledecky, who touched in 8min 7.26s, RNZ reported. Writing for Newsroom’s LockerRoom, Dave Crampton noted it was Ledecky’s first defeat over 800m freestyle at a major international meet, and that 12 years earlier, at the 2014 Pan Pacific championships, Pallister had watched her mother, the Olympian Janelle Elford, present Ledecky with the 800m freestyle gold medal.
Fairweather’s other two bronzes came in the 400m freestyle, where she clocked 4min 2.35s behind the same pair, and in the 200m freestyle, where her 1min 55.05s was a New Zealand record. All three of the swimmers who finished ahead of her across those events, Pallister, Ledecky and Canada’s Summer McIntosh, hold world records.
“It was a nice way to finish what has been a long season,” Fairweather told Newsroom. “I couldn’t be happier and I’m really excited for a bit of a holiday before getting back into training when I get home.”
There was a national record in the relay as well. Fairweather led off the women’s 4x100m freestyle with a lifetime best over 100m, joining Chelsey Edwards, Zoe Pedersen and Milan Glintmeyer to finish fourth in 3min 38.38s. Newsroom reported it as New Zealand’s best relay result at a Pan Pacific championships.
Caitlin Deans had the other standout week. The Dunedin distance swimmer set a lifetime best of 16min 7.44s for fifth in the 1500m freestyle, then lowered her 800m freestyle best to 8min 26.21s for seventh, finishing 0.08 seconds outside the top six. Swimming New Zealand said she had already recorded the fastest time of the morning heats in that event. Deans has taken more than 10 seconds off her 1500m best since the 2024 world championships, and is now one of three New Zealanders this season, alongside Fairweather and Lewis Clareburt, to have swum inside the standards that would qualify outright for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
Clareburt closed out a heavy programme with seventh in the 200m individual medley in 1min 58.12s. RNZ noted that was more than a second and a half slower than the time that won him silver in the same event at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last month. He was sixth in the 400m individual medley in 4min 9.86s and third in the B final of the 200m freestyle.
Elsewhere in the team, Hazel Ouwehand won the B final of the women’s 50m butterfly in 26.13s and placed eighth in the 100m butterfly final. Amber George was seventh in the A final of the 50m backstroke in 28.15s. Chelsey Edwards took fifth in the B final of the 50m freestyle in 25.14s, less than two tenths outside her own national record. Harrison Klouwens was third in the B final of the men’s 50m freestyle in 22.42s, with Cameron Gray fifth in 22.59s. The team also collected two New Zealand age records along the way.
Swimming New Zealand head coach Graham Hill, who also coaches Fairweather, praised the group. “The team has delivered some really strong results. They’ve swum with heart and shown us they can stand up against the best in the world,” he told Newsroom. “Erika coming away with three medals is a big highlight, and we’ve got a great platform to build on towards LA 2028.”
The trip capped an unusually busy few weeks. Fairweather arrived in California straight from Glasgow, where she won five medals at the Commonwealth Games, three silvers in the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle and bronzes in the 200m freestyle and the 4x200m freestyle relay. Newsroom reported that made her the first New Zealand woman in any sport to win five medals at a single Commonwealth Games, matching a haul only Danyon Loader had managed for this country, in 1994. Her 800m swim in Irvine was six seconds quicker than the one that won her silver in Glasgow.
The Pan Pacific championships were held for the first time in eight years, the 2022 edition having been cancelled because of Covid 19. The meet draws swimmers from the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan and other nations outside Europe, and this year’s edition produced a world record on the last night when American Kate Douglass twice broke her own mark in the 50m freestyle, finishing with 23.19s in the final after clocking 23.49s in the morning.
For the New Zealand team, the next targets are the world championships next year and the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. On the evidence of Irvine, Fairweather is closing on the fastest distance freestylers in the world rather than drifting away from them, and she is no longer the only New Zealander in that conversation.
What did you make of the New Zealand team’s week in California? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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