Dubai World Cup Preview: Here Comes Adam Peaty

2015 FINA WORLD CUP: DUBAI

• Friday, November 6th and Saturday, November 7th
• Prelims – 10 am local (1 am EST)  Finals – 6 pm local (9 am EST)
• Hamdan Sports Complex
• Full Schedule/Meet Information
• Start Lists/Live Results
• FINA Live Stream
• Point Standings After Doha

The final leg of the final cluster of this year’s FINA World Cup Series is upon us and, with the start lists just released, it looks like the event will go out with a bang.  In addition to the huge talent we’ve already seen across the World Cup stops along the way, the final competition in Dubai will see two athletes join in for the grand finale – Great Britain’s Adamy Peaty and Turkey’s Viktoria Gunes.

Peaty is coming off of his double wins in Kazan, where he pulled down two titles at the World Championships. The 20-year-old won both the 50m breaststroke and 100m breaststroke events, the latter of which he holds the current World Record from earlier this year. For her part, Gunes was the Female Swimmer of the Meet at the World Junior Championships in Singapore, snagging a remarkable 4 individual titles, including a sweep of the 3 breaststroke events and another gold in the 200 IM. Both add to stellar breaststroking fields ready to race.  This includes includes South African Cameron Van der Burgh, American Kevin Cordes, and British swimmers Ross Murdoch and Craig Benson on the men’s side and Jamaica’s Alia Atkinson, Denmark’s Rikke Moller Pedersen, as well as America’s Molly Hannis and Laura Sogar on the women’s.

In terms of the overall FINA points headed into the final meet, barring anything disastrous, Katinka Hosszu is a lock for the win, as she already holds a 48-point lead over the next highest-point-ranking female, Australia’s Emily Seebohm.

However, the story is different on the gentlemen’s board, where Mitch Larkin (AUS) overtook previous leader Van der Burgh, and the Australian now leads the South African 117 points to 90. Based on his consistency, the 100m and 200m backstroke races are Larkin’s to lose, while Van der Burgh will have a tougher time on the breaststroke end. Van der Burgh earned his individual World Championships silver medals behind Peaty, who is now competing in Dubai. As such, VDB will need to have jets firing on all cylinders in order to catch Larkin.