Pan Pacific Championships, Night Four Finals: Zac Stubblety-Cook Steals 200 Breast Title in Final Strokes
The career of Zac Stubblety-Cook has been defined by extended excellence in the 200-meter breaststroke. The Australian is an Olympic champion, a world titlist and a former world-record holder in the event. And now his story has a comeback chapter as the 27-year-old put together an epic rally to win his prime event on Saturday night at the Pan Pacific Championships in Southern California.
Sitting in seventh place after the opening length, Stubblety-Cook reeled in the opposition down the last length to capture his first Pan Pacs crown, going 2:08.09. That performance from Stubblety-Cook got him to the wall ahead of American Josh Matheny (2:08.25) and Japan’s Shin Ohashi (2:08.27), the world junior record holder. For Stubblety-Cook, it completed his Grand Slam – career titles at the Olympics (2020), World Champs (2022), Commonwealth Games (2022) and Pan Pacs.
It hasn’t been an easy past year for Stubblety-Cook, who dealt with a back injury that forced him to withdraw from the 2025 edition of the World Championships. After returning to training, the Aussie gradually returned to form and claimed a bronze medal at last month’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where he was timed in 2:08.91. A few more weeks allowed Stubblety-Cook to rise higher on the podium, a place he secured in style with a one-second time drop.
After touching in seventh at the 50-meter mark, Stubblety-Cook moved to fifth at the midway point of the race, and gained another position on the third 50. In fourth heading into the final lap, Stubblety-Cook obviously had a lot of work to do, a challenge he embraced. With each stroke, Stubblety-Cook reduced his deficit and, at the wall, he was able to clip Matheny and Ohashi, who was the leader for most of the race. Stubblety-Cook split 32.51 for the last 50 meters, compared to the 33.01 for Matheny and the 34.04 for Ohashi.
“If you asked me in April whether I’d be on two international podiums again this year, I would probably have said no,” Stubblety-Cook said. “I’m pretty stoked considering I had seven weeks of work before trials, so I’m really excited for what the next 24 months brings before (LA28) and what I can do. Obviously, there’s guys in Europe going (2:07.7), so you know (2:08) is good, but it’s all in context. So for me, there’s still a lot of work to do, and I’m pretty stoked to be swimming world class off not as much work as I know I need.”
Matheny was a second faster than Ohashi over the last 50 meters, which placed him on the silver-medal step of the podium. Matheny was third through the first half of the race and moved up to second at the 150-meter turn. As for Ohashi, the 17-year-old was more than a second off his world junior record of 2:06.59.
