by DAVID RIEDER - SENIOR WRITER
SWIMMING WORLD MAGAZINE
Regan Smith is swimming faster than
she ever has in-season, and that includes the spring of 2019 which preceded a
two-world-record performance at the World Championships. Abbey Weitzeil is once
again swimming like one of the top sprinters in the world after missing the top
U.S. squad last year. Lydia Jacoby has returned to her pre-Olympics form, and
she and Lilly King form a robust 1-2 combination in sprint breaststroke.
Teenagers Katie Grimes, Leah Hayes, Bella Sims, Erin Gemmell and Claire
Weinstein have all putting together fast performances. Katie Ledecky is, well,
Katie Ledecky.
Add in college swimming standouts yet
to race long course this year — three-time NCAA champion Kate Douglass, 200 IM
world champion Alex Walsh, 100 butterfly world champion Torri Huske and the
multi-talented Claire Curzan, the latter two Stanford swimmers the centerpieces
of all U.S. women’s sprint relays in 2022 — and the American women sit in fine
shape three months out from the World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.
The U.S. team will face exceptional
competition, particularly from Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh and the entire
Australian contingent, but there should be at least one U.S. medal contender in
every women’s Olympic event, with the possible exception of the 200 freestyle.
There will be plenty of gold-medal chances, including in relays.
But how about the male contingent
that will represent the Stars and Stripes in Fukuoka? There are some glaring
holes, and the team selected at the upcoming U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis
could be one of the weaker rosters in recent memory.
Sure, there will be bright spots. The
backstroke events are always strong, with Ryan Murphy looking like the world’s
premier 200 backstroker as long as Evgeny Rylov is absent from the global
stage, and Murphy and Hunter Armstrong are likely to lead the way in the 100
back. Bobby Finke has built his legend as the fast-finishing lurker in the
distance races, always capable of running down a more heralded competitor.
Carson Foster is becoming a
dependable individual medley force, although keeping pace with Leon Marchand
would be a nearly-insurmountable challenge for anyone, and Nic Fink will look
to continue his late-career exploits as a breaststroke medal threat.
After that? A lot of question marks.
Perhaps Shaine Casas can deliver on
his immense potential at a major meet, with three individual medals a real
possibility between the 200 back, 200 IM and 100 fly. But he has never raced
anything aside from backstroke internationally. Michael Andrew won three
individual medals at the last World Championships (plus a fourth-place finish),
but his start to 2023 has been unimpressive.
The biggest concerns lie in the
freestyle events, where it is very plausible that the American men are shut out
individually outside of Finke, and the 400-meter relays — the events in which
Caeleb Dressel was a wrecking ball from 2017 through 2021. Dressel’s status
remains uncertain for this summer, and while his personal health and happiness
far outweigh the concerns of the U.S. swim team, it’s obvious that his presence
has masked some cracks.
The U.S. men did not win gold at any
global-level meet from 2017 through 2021, with a group of college-aged swimmers
combining to end that drought in 2022. Now, the American and British teams look
like co-favorites for this summer’s world title, but the other two men’s relays
are in worse shape.
Early-season results in the 100 free
have been iffy, with Armstrong’s 48.79 from the recent TYR Pro Series meet in
Westmont, Ill., standing as the top mark in the country. Ryan Held and Brooks
Curry, both standouts last year, have not done much so far in 2023, and all
three men who joined Dressel on the gold-medal-winning relay at the Tokyo
Olympics, Blake Pieroni, Bowe Becker and Zach Apple, have retired. And strong
teams from Italy, Australia and Great Britain, among others, will be awaiting
in Fukuoka to face an American team with an international winning streak dating
back to 2016.
In the medley relay, the Americans
are coming off a head-to-head defeat to Italy at last year’s Worlds, and with
the Italians featuring Thomas Ceccon and Nicolo Martinenghi on the front half
of their squad, the U.S. men need standouts to finish it off to have any hope
of maintaining a tradition of gold-medal excellence in this relay.
These “concerns” might seem akin to
first-world problems. Only the world’s dominant swimming nation would be
worried about a roster led by Murphy, Finke, Foster, Armstrong, Fink and co.,
and the American men will probably end up with more medals than any other
country in Fukuoka.
But the long periods where Michael
Phelps, Ryan Lochte and Dressel have reigned over the sport have pushed the
standard for success to immensely high levels. Now, the sport’s biggest stars
on the men’s side are all European: Marchand, Hungarian butterfly specialist
Kristof Milak and Romanian teenage sensation David Popovici.
As for the U.S. men, when they are
compared to their well-rounded and deep women’s counterparts and compared to
the country’s usually-dominant relay teams, this year’s group will be facing
some challenges in the coming months.
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