Lauren Boyle's stature as an international swimmer keeps growing.
Having won three world championship medals last year, and gold and silver at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last month, she collected the 800m silver medal on the opening night of the Pan Pacific championships on the Gold Coast.
The Aucklandswimmer clocked 8m 18.87s in finishing behind only the marvellous American teenager Katie Ledecky, who streaked clear to win in 8m 11.35s, just .35s off her own world mark.
Boyle was a convincing second, and chuffed about it. The time was just over two seconds faster than her silver medal performance in Glasgow.
"I wanted to try and do better than the Commonwealths and I'm happy to walk away with a slightly faster time," Boyle said.
"I wanted to go out faster because I think at Glasgow I hung around too much at the beginning. I wanted to go out fast and see what happened and luckily I was able to hang on tonight."
Of Ledecky, Boyle admitted it was good to swim alongside the American - "she really makes everybody in the race lift the bar ..."
Boyle was to swim in the 200m freestyle relay last night before her 400m event today. She won gold in Glasgow and should be one to watch tonight.
