Swimming World Presents “18th FINA World Aquatics Championships Preview: Men’s Swimming”

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18th FINA World Aquatics Championships Preview: Men’s Swimming
July 21-28

 

FREESTYLE
BY DAN D’ADDONA
The men’s 50 free has been the must-see event in international pools since its inception as an Olympic event in 1988.
With just fractions of a second deciding first through eighth, it takes nothing short of a perfect race to win the 50 free on the international stage.

With sprinters sticking around longer such as Anthony Ervin, Nathan Adrian and a host of others, the event continues to get faster—and tougher to get into the finals. Meanwhile, in the short-course domain, Caeleb Dressel has gone times that have simply astonished the entire swimming world. So what does that mean for this year’s World Championships? It means, like always, it could be anyone’s race.

BACKSTROKE
BY DAVID RIEDER
Ryan Murphy swept the 100 and 200 back gold medals at the 2016 Olympics and holds the world record in the 100-meter distance, but the conversation around men’s backstroke in 2019 involves many different men who could capture gold in the 50, 100 and 200 at the World Championships. In fact, three different swimmers—none of them Murphy—won World titles in each event in 2017.

France’s Camille Lacourt won gold in the 50 back in 2017, but he retired after that meet. In his absence at last year’s European Championships, Russia’s Kliment Kolesnikov broke the world record with a 24.00. Over the course of the year, Hungary’s Robert Glinta, Murphy and Russia’s Vladimir Morozov all swam times within 3-tenths of that mark. China’s Xu Jiayu, the 100 back World champion in 2017, should contend as well.

BREASTSTROKE
BY DAN D’ADDONA
Adam Peaty has proven to be the best breaststroker in the world, but at the 2019 World Championships, he will need to prove it again.
There are plenty of contenders in the sprint breaststroke events that should push the competition to blistering speeds.

In the 50, Peaty has been in the 26-mid range, just like Ilya Shymanovich of Belarus and Brazil’s duo of Felipe Lima and Joao Gomes Junior. That quartet has made up the entire top 10 list for most of the year.

BUTTERFLY
BY DAN D’ADDONA
The butterfly battles at the World Championships will feature the champions versus the upstarts. There are several men’s swimmers performing at the top of their game heading into the 2019 World Championships, but their names are not Caeleb Dressel (2017 World champ, 100 fly), Joseph Schooling (2016 Olympic champ, 100 fly) or Chad le Clos (2017 World champ, 200 fly).

Still, these champions should be in the mix for multiple gold medals as they look to fend off some of the swimmers who are cruising into Worlds with strong 2019 performances.

However, there is one former champion who has been swimming well this year: Great Britain’s Benjamin Proud (2017 World champ, 50 fly), who has been in the low-23s in the 50, as have Australia’s William Xu Yang, U.S. swimmer Michael Andrew and Ukraine’s Andrii Govorov. Leading the list of contenders in that event is Brazil’s Nicholas Santos, who swam a 22.60 at the FINA Champions Swim Series in Budapest on May 11. He also clocked this year’s third-fastest time: 23.01 at the CSS in Guanzhou, China, on April 27.

INDIVIDUAL MEDLEY
BY DAN D’ADDONA
The men’s individual medley races have had the same international storyline ever since Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte were out of the picture. Can Chase Kalisz and his U.S. teammates keep up with the stellar group of Asian IMers?

In the 200 IM, Japan’s Daiya Seto (400 IM bronze medalist, 2016 Olympics and 2017 Worlds) has been one of the world’s best for years. He and France’s Jeremy Desplanches are the only swimmers to go sub-1:57 so far this year, though China’s Wang Shun (200 IM bronze medalist, 2016 Olympics and 2017 Worlds) and Haiyang Qin are within striking distance, as is Kalisz.

RELAYS
BY DAVID RIEDER
Two of the three men’s relays at the World Championships should be the United States’ to lose, while in the third, the 400 meter free relay, the Americans will be going for revenge after falling short on the anchor leg at each of the last two editions of FINA’s global showcase.

American Caeleb Dressel holds the fastest lifetime best in the entire field—his 47.17 that he swam to win the individual World title two years ago—and he is joined by a deep relay contingent, including Blake Pieroni, Zach Apple, Townley Haas and Nathan Adrian (if he is able to compete after being diagnosed with testicular cancer in December). But Australia, Russia and Brazil all have squads capable of challenging the Americans.

MIXED RELAYS
BY DAVID RIEDER
Given the American and Australian strength in both the women’s and men’s relays, it seems only logical that those two countries would be best equipped for success in the two mixed events. Imagine a 400 meter mixed free relay that included Caeleb Dressel, Blake Pieroni or Nathan Adrian, Simone Manuel and Mallory Comerford against the Campbell sisters (Cate and Bronte), Kyle Chalmers and Cameron McEvoy.

For a more in depth look at the men headed to the FINA World Aquatics Championships this year,
check out the June 2019 issue of Swimming World Magazine, available now!

Swimming June 2019 Cover Sarah Sjostrom

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FEATURES

016 GLOBAL WARMING
by David Rieder, Dan D’Addona, Taylor Brien, Andy Ross, Erin Keaveny and Michael Randazzo
Expect the competition to heat up, July 12-28, as the world’s best aquatic athletes from all over the world converge on Kwangju, South Korea for the 18th FINA World Aquatics Championships.

PREVIEW: WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

016 WOMEN’S SWIMMING

019 MEN’S SWIMMING

024 OPEN WATER SWIMMING

025 DIVING

025 WATER POLO

027 ARTISTIC SWIMMING

028 SWEDISH SUPERSTAR
by David Rieder
Sarah Sjostrom’s swimming career has gone from teenage record-breaking dynamo to Olympic disappointment in 2012 to one of the world’s transcendent female swimmers. In Sweden, the 25-year-old is not ONE of her country’s swimming legends. She is THE legend.

031 REMEMBERING THE 1st WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS – BELGRADE ’73
by Bruce Wigo
Swimming World takes a look back at the 1st FINA World Aquatics Championships in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1973—what was behind the start of a world championship meet and the intrigue behind adding synchronized swimming to the program…and the numerous controversies that led up to the meet as well as the ones that followed.

034 NUTRITION: AROUND THE TABLE WITH MICHIGAN LAKESHORE AQUATICS
by Dan D’Addona and Dawn Weatherwax

COACHING

010 LESSONS WITH THE LEGENDS: DON REDDISH
by Michael J. Stott

014 SWIMMING TECHNIQUE CONCEPTS: DEVELOPMENT OF AN OPTIMAL MODEL FOR TECHNIQUE: PART 7—BODY BASE OF SUPPORT FOR FREESTYLE
by Rod Havriluk
Since hand force is directly related to swimming velocity, controlling the arm motion on the push phase during freestyle has great potential for almost every swimmer. Unfortunately, it is a substantial challenge to independently push the hand backward while the torso rotates upward.

036 PLAN B: COLLEGE CLUB TEAM OPTION (Part 1)
by Michael J. Stott
College Club Swimming has been offering more and more athletes the opportunity to continue participating in the sport they love. In this two-part series, Swimming World explores some personal perspectives from swimmers pursuing their aquatic passion while enjoying a college experience unencumbered by the demands of a varsity athlete.

041 SPECIAL SETS: BREASTSTROKE REVISITED
by Michael J. Stott
John Smithson, co-head coach at Quest Swimming in Richmond, Va., has coached multiple Olympic Trials qualifiers, state record holders and state champions. Last March, two of his 14-year-old swimmers took home wins in the 100 yard breaststroke at the Virginia State Short Course Championships. Here he talks about some of the breaststroke sets that have contributed to his team’s success.

043 Q&A WITH COACH KEVIN ZACHER
by Michael J. Stott

044 HOW THEY TRAIN ASHLEY STROUSE
by Michael J. Stott

TRAINING

013 DRYSIDE TRAINING: EXERCISE EQUIPMENT SERIES—MEDICINE BALL AND CABLE EXERCISES
by J.R. Rosania

JUNIOR SWIMMER

039 GOLDMINDS: THE 5 SUPERPOWERS OF PERFORMANCE
by Wayne Goldsmith
Passion, persistence, practice, patience and peace are all within your grasp!

046 UP & COMERS: KAYLA HAN
by Taylor Brien

COLUMNS

008 A VOICE FOR THE SPORT

009 BEYOND THE YARDS

033 DID YOU KNOW? USA-USSR DUAL MEETS

047 GUTTER TALK

048 PARTING SHOT

 

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Brownish
Brownish
4 years ago

Robert-Andrei Glinta is Romanian.

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