Van Mathias brings a bonkers swimming comeback story to Pan Pacific Championships

In 2018, Van Mathias, a 17-year-old from Beaverton, Oregon, swam for the U.S. junior nationwide workforce for the primary and what can be solely time on the Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Fiji.

Today, Mathias makes his U.S. senior nationwide workforce debut on the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, California (broadcast schedule right here).

In the eight years in between, Mathias swam 5 seasons for Indiana University, retired from competitors, grew to become director of operations for the Hoosiers swim and dive program, unretired after two years and remodeled from a butterflier and IMer to change into the quickest dash breaststroker in American historical past.

At these Pan Pacs, Mathias will race for the primary time donning a nationwide workforce swim cap with each an American flag and his final identify emblazoned on the aspect.

He additionally wore an American flag cap on the 2018 Junior Pan Pacs, however with out his final identify on it. The names are reserved for senior nationwide teamers.

Van Mathias has arrived.

“You grow up watching swimming, watching all the biggest stars in the sport, and they always have their last name on the cap, especially at the biggest meets, the Olympics, things like that,” he mentioned. “Hopefully it’s going to feel really good on my head.”

The Pan Pacific Championships mark the most important worldwide meet of 2026 for U.S. swimmers.

Mathias was forty first and forty eighth in two butterfly occasions on the Tokyo Olympic Trials and had a finest particular person NCAA Championships end of twenty fifth going into his last season in Bloomington in 2022-23.

He transformed to the breaststroke earlier than the 2023 Big Ten Championships. Though it clicked — he completed second within the 100-yard breast at NCAAs — he was prepared to hold up the cap and goggles.

“For now calling it done, end with a bang,” he told SwimSwam after the 2023 NCAAs, “but, who knows, you might see me later on.”

A 12 months later, Mathias, who had moved again to Oregon and coached a highschool workforce, obtained a name from his previous head coach at Indiana, Ray Looze. Looze instructed Mathias apply for this system’s director of operations emptiness.

Mathias interviewed and obtained it, so he moved again to Bloomington for the 2024-25 season. He had performed little swimming within the earlier 18 months. In truth, he barely did any cardio in any respect.

Instead, he undertook a weightlifting program with the assistance of his mother, Nancy, and an uncle, each former aggressive bodybuilders. Mathias went from 200 kilos when he left IU as a swimmer to 235 when he returned as an worker.

Mathias’ workplace being about 20 ft from the pool deck, he obtained curious and splashed round each every now and then. John Long, Jr. and Cory Chitwood, affiliate head coaches who each swam on the 2012 Olympic Trials, joined him for pool exercises.

“Van would intermittently do something fast, and we’d be like, ‘Hmm, that’s pretty good. You’re really throwing down a fast time for not really training,’” Long mentioned.

Then got here the 2025 USA Swimming National Championships in Indianapolis. Mathias trekked up Interstate 69 in his director of ops function to assist the IU swimmers.

Mathias, Looze and Long conversed concerning the state of U.S. males’s breaststroke as they watched the finals. No American cracked the highest 10 on the earth within the 50m breast, an occasion that was added to the 2028 Olympic program two months earlier.

“We’re like, ‘Van, I think with the 50s of strokes being added to the Olympics, we could experiment a little bit, do some different training, and I think your 50m breaststroke could be really, really good,’” Long recalled. “Because we saw what some of the other Americans were doing, it just kind of felt like there was an opening for him.”

Two and a half weeks later, Mathias registered his first official swim instances in practically two and a half years. Within two months, he swam the quickest 50m breast by an American for the 12 months (14th-fastest man on the earth) and certified to make his senior worldwide debut at these Pan Pacs.

He has been swifter in 2026, breaking American information within the 50m breast (in April and once more in June) and within the 100m breast (in June).

The Pan Pacific Swimming Championships air dwell on Peacock and NBCSN from Wednesday via Saturday.

How did this occur? There could possibly be a number of contributing components.

Mathias, although he got here up as a butterflier and IMer, might have been a breaststroke star in ready all alongside given his NCAA runner-up end in 2023. Maybe the weightlifting throughout his retirement gave him an optimum base to work off. Maybe it’s perspective, just a little older, just a little wiser.

“I tell myself that work is hard, swimming is easy,” he mentioned. “I love being a part of something bigger than myself and being able to be there and be a reliable piece for others. This (director of ops) job takes up a big chunk of that. Swimming is kind of my little personal thing that I get for me. I expend a lot of energy being there for others, and swimming is where I can just do it for me.”

Maybe it’s the coaching. Mathias adopted the less-is-more, high-intensity mentality of Australian Cam McEvoy, who broke the 50m freestyle world document in March at age 31.

A typical sprinter swims between 2,000 to five,000 yards per apply, Long mentioned. Mathias ranges from about 1,000 yards to 1,500 yards.

Part of the explanation for that’s necessity. Sometimes he solely has time to squeeze in a 45-minute exercise on account of his job. Mathias retains his cellphone close by simply in case.

“There’s been times where I’ve gotten calls and whatnot that have had to pull me out of the water,” he mentioned. “There’s also been times where I’ve been at my desk in my Speedo, still dripping wet, trying to do something on my computer.”

A director of operations for a swim workforce may be in control of nearly every little thing — organising journey to meets, making certain everyone seems to be fed, coordinating recruit visits, stocking up workforce gear.

This previous March 15, Mathias was woken up at 4 a.m. by a cellphone name that the workforce’s flight plans for later that day for the NCAA Women’s Championships in Atlanta had been canceled on account of heavy lightning.

So Mathias labored the telephones all morning. He was in a position to rebook half the workforce to fly out of Louisville and the opposite half, plus assist workers, on an eight-hour bus from Bloomington. Mathias rode the bus.

“I felt like I lived a lifetime in that day,” he mentioned.

This week, Mathias is entered within the 50m fly (Wednesday), 100m breast (Thursday), 50m breast (Friday) and 50m freestyle (Saturday). The most well-known mustachioed Hoosier swimmer since Mark Spitz doesn’t dwell on medal targets, however wish to document extra personal-best instances.

Mathias, after reflecting on the 2018 Junior Pan Pacs expertise, is requested if the Olympics really feel inside attain.

“I got a lot of people telling me that. I’m trying to ignore it,” he mentioned. “Having a job and all these other things going on in my life, it’s easy to get wrapped up in that stuff. But I think if I can kind of close my world and my perception and just kind of take it day by day, eventually we’ll get there.”

Summer McIntosh will race every single day of the Pan Pacific Championships from Wednesday via Saturday, dwell on Peacock and NBCSN.