LOS ANGELES (United States) — Australian Lani Pallister attacked early and held on to win the women’s 400m freestyle ahead of US great Katie Ledecky at the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, California.
Pallister led all the way to win in 3min 58.42sec, setting a blistering early pace and hanging on as nine-time Olympic gold medallist Ledecky charged late to take silver in 4:00.15.
“It felt good until it didn’t,” said Pallister, who arrived in Irvine off a four-gold performance in the Commonwealth Games and beat Canadian star Summer McIntosh in the 200m free on Wednesday, before finishing runner-up to Ledecky in the 1500m free.
Pallister, who helped Australia bag 4x200m free relay gold on Thursday, admitted she was hurting at the end.
“After having two really good 200s at the start of the week I knew I had easy speed,” she said. “I think it got me on the back end.”
New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather took bronze in 4:02.35 as world record-holder McIntosh had to take what satisfaction she could from winning the consolation final with a time of 4:00.58.
McIntosh, winner of three individual gold medals at the Paris Olympics, said it was a case of “lessons learned” after she miscalculated her preliminary swim and ended up with the ninth-fastest time of the morning.
“I promise I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she said according to AFP.
The competition that brings together top swimmers from non-European countries has been a mixed bag for McIntosh.
She bounced back from her 200m free defeat to win the 400m individual medley but was disappointed to finish more than four seconds slower than her own world mark.
“This meet is definitely not going how I wanted it to go,” McIntosh said.
Australia’s Sam Short continued his stellar form with a dominant victory in the men’s 400m free, clocking 3:40.52 to break legendary Australian Ian Thorpe’s championship record of 3:41.83 set in 1999.
