Pan Pacific Championships, Night Four Finals: Alexanne LePage Pulls Off Surprise in 200 Breast; Kate Douglass Returns From WR for Silver
Minutes after shattering the world record in the 50 freestyle, Kate Douglass tried to pull off perhaps the most unusual double in swimming. She accepted her Pan Pacs gold medal for the 50 free while wearing her cap and goggles so she could walk straight to the ready room in anticipation the 200 breaststroke final. While Douglass has put forth stunning efforts in the sprints this season, the 200 breast made her an Olympic champion two years ago, and she is the second-quickest performer in history.
But under these circumstances, Douglass lacked the speed to keep pace with Alexanne Lepage, a 20-year-old Canadian who crushed her personal-best time on the way to a stunning gold medal. Lepage, a 20-year-old Canadian, jumped out to an early advantage and eventually went up by more than a second on a strong field by the 150-meter mark.
Douglass tried to make a final surge, splitting 36.93 on the way home, but Lepage would not be caught. Lepage swam a time of 2:21.73, obliterating her previous best time of 2:23.03 set at the Canadian Trials last month
“It was so awesome,” Lepage said. “My goal was to just go out and just try to hold on. I couldn’t really see where anyone was, so I just trusted my own race, and I’m really happy with how it went.”
The performance made her the fifth-fastest swimmer in the world this year, trailing Russia’s Evgeniia Chikunova, Great Britain’s Angharad Evans, Douglass and the Netherlands’ Tes Schouten. Afterward, she explained that take-out speed had been her training focus and the key to winning this race.
“It was definitely a point of emphasis,” LePage said. “I was out quicker at trials than I normally was, and we’ve been working on my front end a bit. And I think just making sure I build that second 25 on the first 50, and then it was just hold on, and I was able to.”
Douglass finished in 2:22.57, well off her 2026 best of 2:20.94 and more than four seconds behind the American record of 2:18.50 she set on the way to winning last year’s world title. Still, Douglass picked up her third individual medal of a meet that will go down among the best of her career. Prior to her 50 free world records in prelims and finals, Douglass finished just one hundredth off the world record while leading off the U.S. women’s 400 free relay, and she became the third-fastest woman ever in the 50 butterfly.
South Africa’s Kaylene Corbett stayed in contention the entire way and picked up bronze in 2:22.97, just over a half-second Australia’s Ella Ramsay (2:23.53).
