THE United States of America is favourite to win the 2018 Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships after a comfortable lead at the end of day two of the competition last night.
The competition is being held at the Damodar City Aquatic Centre in Laucala Bay, Suva.
The side has bagged 14 gold medals, 10 silver and three bronze while Canada and Australia are level with one gold, two silver and 2 bronze medals.
USA swimmer Gretchen Walsh broke Simone Manuel’s record of 54.60 seconds in the women 100 metres freestyle set in 2012 with a new time of 55.41 seconds.
In the women’s 100m breaststroke, Emily Weiss also clocked a time of 1.07.55 seconds breaking her old record of 1.07.61 seconds in the heats yesterday.
“I am very happy with the swims in the first two days of the competition. “The swimmers are also getting a lot of best times which is good,” USA official Mitch Dalton said.
“I am proud with the way they are swimming individually and supporting as a team. “There are no secrets, but I would say that there were a lot of work which were done by their home coaches who are here with them in the championship and their programs have worked well. What we are doing in the championship is the last one per cent of work while the other 99 per cent of work was done at home.”
Dalton was happy with the organisation of the championship being hosted by Fiji and gave his thumbs up for future international events.
“Fiji has done really well in terms of hosting the events such as the Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championship and there are a lot of youngsters in the stands and it is inspiring them.”
The championship will end tomorrow.
