Kieren Perkins Welcomes Junior Pan Pacs Down Under As Part Of The Green And Gold Decade
Australian swimming legend Kieren Perkins has welcomed the arrival of next year’s Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships onto Australian shores for the first time.
The 2024 Junior Pan Pacs will be staged in Canberra at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) from August 21-24, 2024.
Swimming Australia made the announcement yesterday with the four-day meet joining what will be an avalanche of major sporting events heading down under as Australia prepares for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane and South-East Queensland.
The Junior Pan Pacs has been the breeding ground for Olympic gold with the likes of Mack Horton, Stephanie Rice, Emma McKeon, Ariarne Titmus and Kaylee McKeown all graduating through a meet that has become synonymous with future success.
Once the golden boy of swimming in Australia, Perkins, also a former president of Swimming Australia is now CEO of the Australian Sports Commission and knows the power and the place of the Pan Pac brand.
As an athlete Perkins first experienced the senior Pan Pacs in Edmonton, CAN for first time in 1991 with a history-making world record in the 800m freestyle on the way through to winning the 1500 in sub 15 minutes.
The senior Pan Pacs themselves have only been staged in Australia on three occasions in Brisbane in 1987, Sydney 1999 and the Gold Coast in 2014.
The two-time Olympic gold medallist said the arrival of the Junior Pan Pacs into Australia would be a key development opportunity as part of the Green and Gold Decade.
It will be a decade of major sport in Australia featuring an array of major sporting events beginning with this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup and will so far include the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Netball World Cup in 2027, the Men’s 2027 and Women’s 2029 Rugby World Cups, culminating in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brisbane in 2032.
And swimming, Australia’s premier Olympic sport wants in on the action.
“The AIS Campus in Canberra is a one-stop shop for thousands of Australian athletes and support staff every year and we’re delighted to be holding this event,” said Perkins, who swam through a decade that culminated in the Sydney 2000 Olympics, his third as an athlete.
“Racing opportunities like this are critical for our young developing athletes and the ability to host this Junior Pan Pac meet in Australia will provide great benefit and we also look forward to hosting some of the region’s most promising athletes at the AIS Campus in 2024.”
It will be the 10th staging of the Junior Pan Pacs, an event that has been hosted in Hawaii on seven occasions – five of those in the meet’s spiritual home of Maui – and one that has been a breeding ground of so many future Olympians.
The inaugural Junior Pan Pacs in Maui in 2005 included an Australian team that featured the likes of Stephanie Rice, Bronte Barratt, Alicia Coutts, Kirk Palmer, Andrew Lauterstein and Grant Brits, who would all go on and medal at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
Now held every two years, the last event took place in Honolulu in 2022. Since its inception in 2005 the event has only been hosted by Hawaii, Guam and Fiji.
Along with Charter Nations Australia, USA, Canada and Japan, the Junior Pan Pacific Championships is open to other non-European nations with Singapore and New Zealand amongst other regular participants.
Swimming Australia High Performance Director Tamara Sheppard said the 2024 Junior Pan Pacs would be a great opportunity for some of Australia’s leading young swimmers to participate in a high quality event at home.
“The athletes coming through the junior ranks now are incredibly fortunate that Australia is hosting Commonwealth and Olympic Games within the next ten years,” said Sheppard.
“Holding the Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Canberra next year provides yet another opportunity for our Junior Dolphins to compete against high quality athletes at home.
“The American team coming out will of course be strong, and we know Canada and Japan will also send talented squads so the standard of the event will be really high.
“Australia has always considered Junior Pan Pacs to be an important event in the development of our young swimmers and there’s no doubt many of the athletes who get the opportunity to swim in Canberra next year will progress onto senior teams in the future.”
More than 300 athletes and support staff will be housed on-site at the AIS for the duration of the event, with training, competition, meals and accommodation all located within walking distance.
In 2022 in Honolulu, Bond University’s Flynn Southam and St Peters Western’s Joshua Staples were the standout swimmers at the event, between them claiming every men’s freestyle gold medal -m Southam the 50, 100 and 200m and Staples the 400, 800 and 1500m in addition to the 4 x 200m freestyle relay – the first time in Junior Pan Pac history that one country has won every male freestyle event.