Pan Pacific Championships, Day 1 Finals: Gretchen Walsh Wins Opening Gold in Irvine at 24.65; Kate Douglass Takes Silver
The first gold of the Pan Pacific Championships belonged to the American who has redefined butterfly and freestyle swimming in every format over the past several years. In her first of four individual events this week, Walsh pulled away from the field in the 50 butterfly to win gold by more than four tenths. In the process, she put a scare into a 12-year-old world record.
After clocking 24.91 in prelims, Walsh emerged from the start slightly behind University of Virginia training partner Kate Douglass but quickly overcame that deficit to move into the lead and pull away. The question then became whether Walsh could touch the world record, the mark of 24.43 set by Swedish legend Sarah Sjostrom in 2014. Walsh finished well but did not have quite enough, but she came in at 24.65 to lower her own championship record from prelims.
Douglass earned silver in 25.06 to secure a 1-2 finish for the United States while Canada’s Taylor Ruck secured bronze in 25.23, 0.11 clear of Australia’s Alex Perkins (25.34).
Walsh won the world title in the event last year while Sjostrom took the year off from competition after giving birth to her first child. On the way to that gold, Walsh became the second swimmer to put up a time under 25 seconds, signaling her intent to take a shot at the world record. She nearly stole that record in June at the Sette Colli meet in Rome, swimming a time of 24.51 to miss by just eight hundredths and notching her first-ever win over Sjostrom in the process.
