Lauren Boyle takes silver at Pan Pacs - stuff.co.nz

Photo : Getty Images

New Zealand's Lauren Boyle swam the second fastest 800m freestyle of her career but had to bow to American superstar Katie Ledecky at the Pan Pacific swimming championships on the Gold Coast tonight.

Boyle clocked 8:18.87, finishing runner-up to Ledecky which was just .29sec slower than Boyle's bronze medal winning swim at the world championships last year.

Boyle clung to Ledecky in the first 200m of the race but could not match strokes with the 17-year old who was then on world record pace.

At one stage Ledecky was well under her own world mark but she tired in the closing stages a little but still clocked 8:11.35, the second fastest 800m ever, just 0.35 from her world mark. Ledecky had earlier won the 200m freestyle in cool, windy conditions.

Boyle could still be proud of her performance which was about 1.5 sec faster than her swim for silver in the 800m at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Kiwi Matthew Stanley improved a place to seventh in the final of the men's 200m freestyle.

Stanley was the last qualifier after clocking 1:48.74 in the heats but reduced that by 1.41sec to 1:47.33 in a closely contested final won by Australia's Commonwealth Games champion Thomas Fraser-Holmes in 1:45.98.

Before that fellow New Zealanders Dylan Dunlop-Barrett and Steven Kent finished fifth and sixth in the B final of the 200m freestyle.

Dunlop-Barrett was quicker than his morning heat when he touched in 1:49.30 (1:50.01 in heat) but Kent was slower after producing a personal best of 1:49.00 in the heats before clocking 1:49.71 to finish just behind Dunlop-Barrett.

Backstroker Corey Main was third in the 100m B final touching in 54.70sec after being timed at 55.36 in the morning heats.

Samantha Lucie-Smith finished fifth in the B final of the 200m freestyle.

Don Oliver Youth Sport Foundation proudly supported by The Trusts