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Irvine: Death, taxes and US great Katie Ledecky winning 800-metre freestyle finals on the international stage.
Australia’s Lani Pallister showed on an extraordinary Saturday evening in Irvine, California, that only two of life’s three perceived certainties remain.
On one of Australian cricket’s worst days, swimming enjoyed one of its finest nights on the final evening of the Pan Pacific Championships 12,500 kilometres away from the carnage inflicted by Bangladesh in Darwin.
Pallister’s 800m freestyle win for the ages handed Ledecky, a four-time Olympic champion in the event, her first defeat over the distance in international competition. She has been near impossible to beat and this undoubtedly was one of Australian swimming’s most magnificent feats.
Since she was a 13-year-old in 2010, Ledecky did not lose a 800m freestyle final in more than 13 years. That was until Summer McIntosh knocked her off in a domestic meet in the USA, but doing so on the international stage is a more impressive feat.
This was simply dessert for a dominant Dolphins team after Sam Short’s victory in the men’s 1500m freestyle in a time of 14 minutes, 33.97 seconds, which lowered Grant Hackett’s 25-year-old Australian record.
From Boy Charlton’s world record in 1924, through the eras of John Konrads, Murray Rose and Kieren Perkins, to Hackett’s then-world record at the 2001 world championships in Fukuoka, Short wrote his name into Australian swimming folklore in an event that holds a special place in the nation’s sporting history.
“This is the best moment,” said an ecstatic Short. “I will remember this for the rest of my life.”
It came after golden entrées from Jamie Jack in the 50m freestyle – one-upping sister Shayna by snaring an individual Pan Pacs gold medal – and stalwart Zac Stubblety-Cook snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in the 200m breaststroke with a last-gasp win that shocked even him.
“That’s the best I could ask for,” Jack said of his personal best of 21.35 seconds.
Australia fell four gold medals shy of the USA’s tally of 19, but there was a palpable sense in Irvine that this Dolphins team will be a formidable force at the LA Olympics in two years when stars Cam McEvoy, Mollie O’Callaghan, Kaylee McKeown, Kyle Chalmers and Flynn Southam return. If all were in Irvine, Australia would have beaten the USA on the medal tally.
The magnitude of Pallister and Short’s victories cannot be overstated. Both will leave California with three individual gold medals and considerably enhanced reputations.
This was the most nervous Pallister had been in her entire life. In the stands were Australian swimming royalty Ian Thorpe, swanning about the VIP section, her Olympian mother Janelle Elford, former coach Michael Bohl, and rock star and former training partner Cody Simpson, who had driven down from LA.
And, of course, there was her coach, Dean Boxall, initially hiding at the back of the stand, barely able to watch as his prodigy tried to down not only the greatest female swimmer of all time in an event she has become synonymous with, but the athlete Pallister grew up idolising.
Armed with supreme confidence from her 200m and 400m freestyle victories, Pallister attacked the race with an audacity and fearlessness that cannot be taught. Under world record pace at the 550-metre mark, Pallister began to tire but drew on countless hours of training to summon enough energy to hold on for a 1.16 second victory.
“I was so locked in,” Pallister said. “I saw her coming on the last 50 and thought, ‘holy shit’.”
Pallister’s time of 8:06.10 was a Pan Pacs record, but outside Ledecky’s world record of 8:04.12. That mattered little. This was a line-in-the-sand moment, proof that on July 30, 2028, in front of 38,000 spectators at SoFi Stadium, Pallister could silence the home crowd.
Pallister raced out of the water towards an elated Boxall, who rushed down from the stands and cradled her head in a warm embrace.
Ledecky looked back at the pool, perhaps processing a feeling almost completely foreign to her after an 800m freestyle race: defeat.
“It’s the race I care about most,” Pallister said.
It was quite the day for international swimming. American Kate Douglass lowered Gretchen Walsh’s women’s 50m freestyle world record from 23.55s to 23.49s in the heats, before slicing a whopping three-tenths of a second off it again in the evening to win gold, with Australia’s Meg Harris clocking a personal best of 23.89s to settle for bronze.
“Hopefully one day I’ll be able to put something incredible up there, too,” Harris said.
Meanwhile, in Paris, German teenager Johannes Liebmann shaved almost four seconds off Bobby Finke’s 1500m freestyle world record to clock 14:26.79.
“It was the best swim I’ve ever seen,” Short said after he and Pallister pored over Liebmann’s live splits in the hotel lift together.
Before the Pan Pacs, Short said he wanted to “smash those yanks” and “destroy them”. Brimming with confidence and an unquenchable thirst for dominance, Short took an early lead and blitzed the field, winning by 8.63 seconds and snaring one of his hero’s Australian records.
A big thumbs up from coach Damien Jones was a subtle acknowledgment of the magnitude of the swim, as Thorpe applauded a few metres away.
“I talked the talk and, hopefully, I walked the walk,” Short said. “That then was straight guts. I’m proud of that.
“I was glad I got to perform with one of my childhood heroes in the stands. Hopefully I impressed him. I heard 14:33 and was like, ‘holy moley’.”
It has been more than two decades since Thorpe graced a media mixed zone, but he was coaxed downstairs to join Short and reflect on the performance of a swimmer who now owns the Australian records in the 800m and 1500m freestyle.
Short, however, is still 0.44 seconds shy of Thorpe’s Australian 400m freestyle record.
“It’s been a great meet for Sam,” Thorpe said. “His consistency has been impressive. He broke my Pan Pac record, which I didn’t know I had any more.”
Short laughed, adding: “He couldn’t drive when he set that record.”
The 1998 world championships were a pivotal meet for Thorpe on the road to Sydney 2000. Two years out from the LA Olympics, Australia now has two genuine superstars making similar statements. There is work to do, but Thorpe’s words carry weight when he surveys what he says is a golden generation Australian swimming.
“It’s exciting. We have a team that is producing the best result we’ve ever seen in the pool,” Thorpe said.
“It was also amazing for Lani. She’s had a great meet. She is making her own mark.
“But I know what Katie Ledecky is like. She has a four-year plan. She will be wanting to be the first person to win five golds in a row [in the same event]. It’s a great result for now but a great motivator ahead of LA.”
Tom Decent is the chief sports writer for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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