Rick Madge - (Author)

Pan Pacific Championships, Night Four Finals: American Women Maintain Medley Relay Winning Streak in Blowout For four consecutive years, the United States women have finished off the summer's major international competition with dominant performance in the 400 medley relay, breaking world records at...

Pan Pacific Championships, Night Four Finals: Alexanne LePage Pulls Off Surprise in 200 Breast; Kate Douglass Returns From WR for Silver Minutes after shattering the world record in the 50 freestyle, Kate Douglass tried to pull off perhaps the most unusual double in swimming. She accepted her Pan Pa...

Pan Pacific Championships, Night Four Finals: Yu Yiting Holds Off Summer McIntosh in 200 IM, Begins Final Night With Upset Two years ago in the Olympic final of the 200 IM, Summer McIntosh used a stunning finish to pass Americans Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh and win her third gold medal. During the ...

Johannes Liebmann, Kate Douglass Snatch Opposite World Records on Different Continents in Consecutive Minutes The timing of this week's major international competitions means that finals of the European Championships have been taking place concurrently with qualifying heats at the Pan Pacific Champi...

Pan Pacific Championships, Day 3 Finals: Sam Williamson Edges Michael Houlie, Van Mathias in 50 Breast; Third Individual Gold of Summer For the seventh time in three days of racing at Pan Pacs, an Australian swimmer has won gold after previously topping the same event on the other side of the Atlant...

Pan Pacific Championships, Day 3 Finals: Amid 'Rocky' Meet, Regan Smith Pulls Away From Claire Curzan for 200 Back Gold Puzzling might be the best description for the collection of performances Regan Smith has put together at the Pan Pacific Championships. First came a 100 backstroke performance tha...

Pan Pacific Championships, Day 3 Finals: Lani Pallister Holds Off Katie Ledecky in 400 Free, Continues Stretch of Gold Medals When this summer championship season concludes, Lani Pallister will end up among the most decorated performers from this stretch of regional competition. Pallister captured f...

Pan Pacific Championships, Night Two Finals: Tomoyuki Matsushita Holds Off Surging Carson Foster for 400 IM Title Two of the three medalists from the Paris Olympics highlighted the Pan Pacs final of the men's 400 IM, and both delivered sterling performances in a showdown that came down to the wire. ...

Pan Pacific Championships, Night Two Finals: Summer McIntosh Extends Long Winning Streak in 400 IM With 10th-Best Time Ever Following a narrow loss to Lani Pallister in the 200 freestyle, Summer McIntosh set her sights on a gold medal in one of her signature events. And as expected, no one came clos...

Approaching Legendary World Record Elevates Hubert Kos Alongside Marchand as World's Dominant Swimmer Last month, Summer McIntosh erased the last women's long course world record surviving from the polyurethane-suit era, her 2:01.65 in the 200 butterfly at Canadian Trials finally beating the 2009 ma...

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 fir...

Madi Mintenko Following Family Legacy, Emerging as Mid-Distance Force Less than two months after moving to the University of Virginia, Madi Mintenko swam at the 2025 Summer Championships in Irvine, Calif., a consolation meet of sorts for those who did not qualify for the World Championships. Before ...

Pan Pacific Championships: United States Could Consider Unconventional Lineup for Mixed Medley Relay Conventional thinking around the mixed 400 medley relay, an event part of the Olympic program for only the past two Games, suggests using a male breaststroker and female freestyler. Based on a team's...

Five Men's Storylines to Follow at the Pan Pacific Championships: Bobby Finke, Sam Short Set for Distance Matchups The Pan Pacific Championships are days away, with swimmers from Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, China and elsewhere traveling to Irvine, California, for what could turn ...

Josh Bey, Gabe Nunziata Raise the Bar for U.S. Men in 200 Breaststroke Last year, Josh Matheny was the only swimmer to break 2:09 in the 200 breaststroke final at U.S. Nationals, following up an Olympic final appearance with a time of 2:08.87. Matheny struggled in the event at the World Championship...

Improved American Freestyle Depth Bodes Well for Relay Prospects At the past three years of international competitions, the gold-medal podium has been an elusive target for the United States in freestyle relays. The U.S. men dominated the 400 free relay in Paris, and the mixed 400 free relay secured...

American Women Setting Up World Record Challenge in 400 Freestyle Relay Australia has not lost the women's 400 freestyle relay in nine years, a stretch dating back to the 2017 World Championships. Most recently, the Aussies scraped out a win over the United States by less than a half-second at the S...

Federal Injunction Could Allow Just-Graduated NCAA Athletes to Return for Fifth Year Beginning with the 2026-27 academic year, the NCAA will roll out a new eligibility model giving athletes five years following their high school graduation or 19th birthday, whichever comes sooner, to compete for the...

U.S. Nationals, Day Four Men's Finals: Alexei Avakov Pulls Away in 100 Breaststroke, Joins Sub-59 Club This year's U.S. Nationals has produced a new series of standout American breaststrokers, with Josh Bey and Gabe Nunziata going 2:07s in the 200-meter race before Watson Nguyen pulled off a shock w...

Luka Mijatovic Overtakes Ryan Erisman in Electric 400 Freestyle Battle, Crushes NAG Record With 3:43.45 Two up-and-coming mid-distance freestylers went head-to-head in the men's 400 freestyle final at U.S. Nationals Friday evening. Ryan Erisman, a 20-year-old coming off a strong freshman year at Cal...