Ledecky wins 1500m on Pan Pacs opening night as Urlando rewrites Phelps record
Katie Ledecky won the 1500m freestyle on the opening night of the 2026 Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, California, touching in 15:36.09 — her first international medal on home soil The Guardian; Seattle PI.
Lani Pallister of Australia took silver in a personal best of 15:38.62, 2.53 seconds back. Teammate Moesha Johnson completed the podium for bronze. The 1500m freestyle — 30 lengths of a 50-metre pool — is an event Ledecky has dominated for the better part of a decade, and the 29-year-old showed no signs of loosening her grip.
Pallister, though, is closing the gap. Earlier in the meet she finished just 0.36 seconds behind Ledecky in the 800m freestyle — the smallest winning margin Ledecky has ever recorded in that event Olympics.com. She also won the women's 200m freestyle on the same night, clocking a course-record 1:53.67 to beat Canada's Summer McIntosh (1:53.86) and New Zealand's Erika Fairweather.
Australia then struck gold in the women's 4×200m freestyle relay in a new Pan Pacs record of 7:44.12, holding off a US quartet that included Ledecky splitting 1:53.84 Dolphins Aus.
The US had its own headline moment. Luca Urlando won the men's 200m butterfly in 1:53.11, breaking the championship record of 1:53.80 set by Michael Phelps at the 2006 Pan Pacs in Vancouver — a mark that had stood for two decades. Phelps himself was on the pool deck to present medals to the butterfly podium.
Gretchen Walsh took the women's 50m butterfly in 24.65s, ahead of teammate Kate Douglass (25.06). Douglass had earlier become only the third woman to break 25 seconds in the event with a prelim time of 24.99.
Katharine Berkoff and Regan Smith went one-two in the women's 100m backstroke, Berkoff touching in 57.93 with Smith second in 58.11. On the men's side, Luke Hobson (1:43.85) led Gabriel Jett (1:43.96, personal best) to a US sweep in the 200m freestyle, while Australia's Ben Armbruster won the men's 50m butterfly in 22.75s.
The Pan Pacific Championships, which bring together the major swimming nations from both sides of the Pacific, limit each country to just two swimmers per championship final — a rule that keeps fields diverse but means some contenders never reach the podium despite fast times.
This is the first Pan Pacs since 2018. The 2022 edition was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The meet was moved from Canada to Southern California to give the region a major international competition ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where swimming will be held at SoFi Stadium The Guardian.
The championship runs August 12–15 at the Woollett Aquatics Center in Irvine.
