2025 Junior Pan American Games – Swimming
- August 10-14, 2025
- Olympic Aquatic Centre, Luque, Asuncion, Paraguay
- Long Course Meters (50 meters)
- Live Results on the “Asuncion 2025” app
- Results PDFs: Day 1
While a handful of key American nations, specifically the North American behemoths from the United States and Canada, are absent from the 2025 Junior Pan American Games, the meet still produced some fast results on day 1.
The event is for athletes aged 17 to 22, based on their age at the end of the year.
That included in the 400 freestyles: distance events that South America has not historically been known for but where the region has grown in prominence in recent years.
In the women’s race, Argentina’s Agostina Hein won in 4:06.96. For the 17-year-old, that’s just three tenths away from the Argentine Record of 4:06.61 swum by Delfina Pignatiello, one of the country’s most famous swimmers, in 2019.
Hein later split 56.30 on the leadoff leg of Argentina’s bronze medal winning women’s 400 free relay. Showing off her versatility, that was her team’s fastest split even without a rolling start. Brazil won that race in 3:44.03, with American-trained Olympian Stephanie Balduccini anchoring in 54.47.
In the next race, the men’s 400 free, Brazilian Stephan Steverink won in 3:46.71. According to SwimSwam statistician Daniel Takata , that swim makes him the second-fastest Brazilian under the age of 22 ever, .14 seconds behind Guilherme Costa.
That time was faster than Steverink’s 18th place swim at the World Championships last week, where he touched in 3:47.93. He would have missed the final by less than a second if he had done this week’s swim in Singapore.
While distance races shined on day 1, the sprinters will take over later in the meet. In addition to Balducini, big names later in the meet include the University of Tennessee trio of Gui Caribe (Brazil), Lamar Taylor (Barbados), and Nikoli Blackman (Trinidad & Tobago). On the women’s side, Southern Illinois University All-American backstroker Celia Pulido will represent Mexico.
They all raced in the relays on Sunday, with Pulido anchoring Mexico to silver. On the men’s side, Caribe split 48.59 on a rolling start as part of the Brazil’s gold medal effort, Blackman split 49.18 on a leadoff to help T&T to bronze, and Taylor split 49.01 on a leadoff as Bahamas placed 6th.
Besides Caribe, the only 48-second splits in the field were a 48.83 leadoff from Mexico’s Andres Dupont and a 48.78 anchor from Argentina’s Matias Santiso.
Many of the big names at this meet have NCAA ties. That includes Emily Santos from Panama, who trains at Virginia Tech University in the United States.
She won the 100 breaststroke to kick off the meet on Sunday in 1:08.44. That snuck under her own National Record of 1:08.68 from last year’s CCCAN Championships.
She is coming fresh off a World Championships appearance where she placed 37th in the 100 breaststroke in 1:09.62.
In the men’s version of that race, Xavier Ruiz from Puerto Rico won in 1:00.84, using a big back-half split of 32.16 to pull away from Brazil’s Guilherme Camossato (1:01.26). Ruiz was actually a hair faster in prelims, 1:00.80, to break the Puerto Rican Record.
Other Day 1 Winners
- Gustavo Francisco Saldo and Gabriel Moura from Brazil went 1-2 in the men’s 200 fly. Saldo won in 1:58.95 and Moura was 2nd in 1:59.45. Raekwon Noel, who lives in New Jersey and just finished his freshman season at Indiana, took bronze in 1:59.46 for Guyana. That is just the second medals for his country in any sport in the two-edition history of the Multi-sport Junior Pan American Games, with the other coming in the women’s triple jump in 2021, the inaugural version.
- Ana Julia Aguiar Amaral from Brazil won the women’s 200 fly in 2:13.08.
Medals Table After Day 1
| Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| Brazil | 5 | 3 | 1 |
| Chile | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Argentina | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Colombia | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Panama | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Jamaica | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Puerto Rico | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Peru | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Guyana | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Mexico | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Venezuela | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Trinidad & Tobago | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Lamar is from the Bahamas
Emily Santos national record was 1:08.68 from last year’s CCCAN
Noel is already attending Indiana and set a national record.His Jamaican teammate Collin McKenzie won Bronze in the 100 meter breaststroke in a national record.Another Jamaican Sabrina Lyn of LSU took the Silver in the women’s 100 meter breaststroke.
Team Trinidad and Tobago with Nikoli Blackman of Tennessee,Zarek Wilson of Alabama,Johan Matamoro UIndy Div2 and his incoming freshman Zachary Anthony for Uindy won the Bronze in the 400 freestyle relay in a new national record.