Saint Lucia’s Antoine Destang closed out the 2026 Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships with two personal-best performances and three B-Final appearances at the UBC Aquatic Centre in Vancouver, Canada.
The 18-year-old University of Michigan student-athlete contested six events over four days, testing himself against junior swimmers from the United States, Canada, Asia, and Oceania.
Destang launched his campaign on Monday with a career-best swim in the men’s 50m butterfly. Seeded 16th with an entry time of 25.16, he lowered his previous personal best, set at the 2025 CARIFTA Swimming Championships in Trinidad & Tobago, by 0.14 seconds, stopping the clock in 25.02 to finish 16th in the morning preliminaries. In the evening session, he touched in 25.12 to place third in the B Final and 13th overall.
He also contested the 100m backstroke on day one, improving on his 59.99 seed time to finish 25th overall in 59.32 seconds.
On Tuesday, Destang took to the water for the 100m freestyle, opening with a 25.11 split before coming home in 26.78 for a 51.89 finish (30th overall), followed by 27.89 in the 50m backstroke preliminaries to rank 24th.
The Wolverine sophomore secured his second final on Wednesday, this time in the 100m butterfly. After registering 56.27 in the preliminary heats to place 18th, he returned for the B Final to post a 56.56 mark, good for sixth in the heat and 16th overall.
He brought the curtain down on Thursday with a pair of matching personal-best clockings in the 50m freestyle. Destang shaved two-hundredths of a second off his previous best of 23.70, established at the 2024 CCCAN Championships in Mexico, with a 23.68 swim in the heats to claim 18th place. He matched that 23.68 in the B Final to place 10th in the race and 20th overall.
