{"id":325299,"date":"2018-08-11T11:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-08-11T18:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=325299"},"modified":"2018-08-11T11:00:03","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T18:00:03","slug":"around-the-swimming-world-the-purpose-of-pan-pacs-for-team-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/around-the-swimming-world-the-purpose-of-pan-pacs-for-team-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Around the Swimming World: The Purpose of Pan Pacs for Team USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Rieder.<\/em><\/p>\n

Katie Ledecky<\/strong> won gold in the 400 free<\/a> at the Pan Pacific Championships in 3:58.50, the sixth-fastest performance in history and six tenths faster than any other woman had ever swum. She had swum within close range of her world-record pace for most of the race, only to fall off the pace over the final 100 meters.<\/p>\n

And afterwards, Ledecky explained that even though she didn\u2019t swim a season-best time, she was pleased, especially given \u201cthe conditions that we\u2019re swimming under.\u201d She was not referring to the hot and humid weather that has gripped Tokyo all week.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>It\u2019s been a pretty rough week, just competing in a different time zone very far from the U.S., 16-hour time difference,\u201d Ledecky said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot harder than any of us could have anticipated, knowing that we just got here a couple days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traditionally, U.S. teams attend training camp in the same time zone prior to the start of a major international meet. For the 2015 and 2017 World Championships, the teams trained for a week in the coastal Croatian city of Opatija. Before the 2016 Olympics, the team\u2019s training camp was domestic, but Atlanta was only a one-hour time difference from Rio.<\/p>\n

Even before the 2014 Pan Pacs in Gold Coast, Australia, the Americans trained for several days before the meet in Brisbane. But this time, the team held a stateside training camp in California and left Saturday (Aug. 4) for Tokyo. They arrived Sunday, just four days before the meet began.<\/p>\n

In what has been a below-par performance for Team USA this week, jet lag has been an issue. Swimmers and team officials have admitted that. Undoubtedly, some are affected more than others. Evening swims likely suffer more than morning swims\u2014remember, 7 p.m. Tokyo time is 3 a.m. California time, while 10 a.m. Tokyo time is a more reasonable 6 p.m. California time.<\/p>\n

No one should be surprised the time change has affected performance. Even USA Swimming would have known that when choosing a location for training camp. Undoubtedly, they would not take a team to an Olympics or World Championships with such a short adjustment period. But to USA Swimming, Pan Pacs simply is not as big of a deal.<\/p>\n

$\"blake-pieroni-\"$
Blake Pieroni swam in the wrong spot on the U.S. men’s 4×100 free relay — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick<\/p><\/div>\n
Make no mistake: Silly errors\u2014like the U.S. men\u2019s 4×100 free relay\u2019s disqualification for swimming in the wrong order<\/a> because of a miscommunication by the coaching staff\u2014are still a problem. They\u2019re avoidable. The difference here compared to any other major meet is that the team didn\u2019t pull out all the stops to ensure peak performance.<\/p>\n
Bob Bowman<\/strong> and Bruce Gemmell<\/strong> both weighed in on Twitter. Neither speak for USA Swimming, but both did hold coaching staff positions for both the 2014 Pan Pacs and 2016 Olympics. Bowman started the conversation when he asked, \u201cWhat is the purpose of Pan Pacs?\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, the two discussed how adverse conditions at a meet like Pan Pacs can actually be advantageous.<\/p>\n
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Rio was certainly less than ideal conditions. Perhaps that \u201cathlete development\u201d took place in less than places like Kazan and Gold Coast in the freezing rain … perhaps.<\/p>\n
— Bruce Gemmell (@CoachGemmell) August 11, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n