Bobby Finke After Pan Pacs: "Things didn't go my way this year"

After placing 2nd in the 800 and 3rd in the 1500 and 400 IM at the 2026 Pan Pacific Champs, 3x Olympic champion Bobby Finke seemed less than thrilled. Although the 400 IM seemed like a promising result for the distance ace, his freestyle events were a bit off.

Although his 7:42.52 was faster than the times he put up in the prelims (7:44.02) or final (7:46.42) of the 2025 World Champs last year, it's still well off his American record of 7:38.67. His 1500 at Pan Pacs (14:44.26) was also far off of his best time from last year at Worlds (14:36.60). It was also well off his previous world record (14:30.67), which was broken by Germany's Johannes Liebmann the morning before Finke swam his 14:44.

After his meet in Irvine, Finke said he'd go back to the drawing board and perhaps take a shorter break, getting back into training sooner than last season.