{"id":651522,"date":"2026-08-15T20:51:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T03:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=651522"},"modified":"2026-08-15T21:14:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T04:14:40","slug":"pan-pacific-championships-night-four-finals-zac-stubblety-cook-steals-200-breast-title-in-final-strokes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/pan-pacific-championships-night-four-finals-zac-stubblety-cook-steals-200-breast-title-in-final-strokes\/","title":{"rendered":"Pan Pacific Championships, Night Four Finals: Zac Stubblety-Cook Steals 200 Breast Title in Final Strokes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pan Pacific Championships, Night Four Finals: Zac Stubblety-Cook Steals 200 Breast Title in Final Strokes<\/strong><\/p>\n

The career of Zac Stubblety-Cook<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong> (2:08.25) and Japan’s Shin Ohashi<\/strong> (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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n