SwimSwam Pulse: 59.8% Think Pan Pacs Will Be Fastest Championship Meet This Year

SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side.

Our most recent poll asked SwimSwam readers which championship meet will be fastest this summer/early fall:

Question: Which meet will have the fastest winning time in the most individual events?

RESULTS

• Pan Pacs – 59.8%
• Euros – 29.4%
• Commonwealth Games – 9.0%
• Asian Games – 1.8%

This year marks the first time since 2018 that there won’t be an Olympics or LC World Championships on the international swimming calendar—not including the COVID-impacted 2020 year.

Therefore, we won’t see the world’s best swimmers come together for a best-on-best competition. Instead, things will be spread out, with the Commonwealth Games, Pan Pacific Championships and European Championships running later this summer, and then the Asian Games following in the fall.

We asked SwimSwam readers which meet they believe will be the fastest, solely looking at the winning time in each event for simplicity. The poll was posed as which of the four meets will have the fastest winning time in the most individual events—that is, if we combined results from each competition, which meet produced the most gold medal-winning times?

Coming out on top by a massive margin was the Pan Pacific Championships, earning nearly 60% of votes at 59.8%. Although the men’s field at Pan Pacs may be slightly weaker than the European Championships on paper, the women’s side is dominant.

Last year, 14 of the 17 individual female gold medalists from the 2025 World Championships were from core Pan Pac countries—USA, Australia or Canada—and so far this season, that trend has continued.

Of the 17 women’s individual events on the program, the top-ranked swimmer in the world comes from a Pan Pac country in 12 of them.

Fastest Female Swimmers In The World This Season

Likely boosting the Pan Pacs in the poll, relative to the Commonwealth Games, which earned just 9% of votes, is the fact that the most dominant female swimmer in the world, Summer McIntosh, will only be racing at Pan Pacs, forgoing the Commonwealth Games.

The same will be done by Australians Cameron McEvoy, Kyle Chalmers and Shayna Jack, though of those three, McEvoy is the only one currently owning a world-leading time.

On the men’s side, 10 of the 17 individual world champions from last year were from European countries, while among Pan Pac countries, the only gold medalists were McEvoy, South Africa’s Pieter Coetze and American Luca Urlando. Like McEvoy, Coetze will race at the Commonwealth Games but was noncommital about Pan Pacs a few months ago.

So far this season, eight of the fastest times on the men’s side come from athletes headed to Euros, while four are going to the Asian Games. Sam Short and Van Mathias own two world-leading times apiece, and they’re the only men headed to Pan Pacs who sit atop the world rankings.

For the Commonwealth Games, there’s only McEvoy and Short.

Fastest Male Swimmers In The World This Season

If we combine the two tables, Pan Pacs leads the way, showing that the sentiment in the poll lines up with the numbers. The European Championships aren’t too far back, while the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games trail.

Of course, this just gives us an idea of where the fastest times this summer may come from. Some of the best swimmers in the world, most notably multi-time world champions Kaylee McKeown and David Popovici, don’t own world-leading times yet this season, but could easily do so when the chips are down at their respective taper meets.

But it’s clear that most expect Pan Pacs to be the fastest meet overall, though more prominently on the women’s side, while the power on the men’s side is a little more spread out, led by the Europeans.

Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks: As the 50 free world record holder and 200 breast Olympic champion, is Kate Douglass the most versatile female swimmer in the world?

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ABOUT A3 PERFORMANCE

The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner.