The Pan Pacific Championships, this year’s major international swim meet and the determinant of the U.S. team for the 2019 World Championships, airs live on Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA this week.
All Olympic Channel coverage streams on NBCSports.com/live, the NBC Sports app, OlympicChannel.com and the Olympic Channel app for subscribers.
NBC airs Pan Pacs highlights Saturday and Sunday.
The U.S., led by Katie Ledecky, Simone Manuel, Lilly King, Caeleb Dressel and Chase Kalisz, takes on non-European nations including swim powers Australia and Japan.
Results at the meet in Tokyo can be viewed in three ways:
- Pure racing for gold, silver and bronze medals.
- Comparing times with the ongoing European Championships and Asian Games later this month to determine the fastest swimmers in the world this year.
- Ranking the top two Americans per individual Olympic event to see who makes the 2019 World Championships team. Worlds spots go to the swimmers with the best times from either finals at nationals two weeks ago or the A or B finals from Pan Pacs.
The last bullet creates a competition within the competition for the U.S., which earned more than three times as many swimming medals as the second-place nation at the 2016 Olympics and 2017 Worlds.
The top matchups between the U.S. and other nations at Pan Pacs: women’s backstrokes (Kathleen Baker vs. Canadians Kylie Masse and Taylor Ruck), women’s 200m freestyle (Ledecky vs. Ruck) and men’s individual medleys (Kalisz vs. Japanese Kosuke Hagino and Daiya Seto).
Ledecky swept the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m frees, plus anchored the victorious 4x200m free relay at this meet four years ago. She is favored to win all of those events again in Tokyo.
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| Date | Time (ET) | Network |
| Thursday | 5-8:30 a.m. | Olympic Channel (LIVE) |
| Friday | 6-8:30 a.m. | Olympic Channel (LIVE) |
| Saturday | 5:30-8 a.m. | Olympic Channel (LIVE) |
| 4-6 p.m. | NBC | |
| Sunday | 5-8:30 a.m. | Olympic Channel (LIVE) |
| 4-6 p.m. | NBC |
