Well then, this race got a little more interesting in the last year, didn’t it?
Dana Vollmer in 2012 broke the World Record and won the Olympic title by nine-tenths of a second: a huge margin for that race, and bigger than the margin had been since Inge de Bruijn’s domination of the race in Sydney.
But here’s the stat of the year: no woman in history has won Olympic gold and subsequently won a World Championship in that event, for the rest of her career, in the 100 fly. Nobody has ever repeated as a women’s 100 fly champion. De Bruijn didn’t even swim the 100 fly in Fukuoka in 2001, despite dominating the Olympic race the year before by more than a second. Only two women have managed to even medal in the event in two Olympic Games, and only one of those (de Bruijn) has a gold as one of those medals. Winning an Olympic gold in the women’s 100 fly is almost a death-blow to one’s 100 fly career.
So, will the ‘Olympic curse’ get Vollmer as well? She wasn’t as good at the World Championship Trials as she was a year before in Omaha, and she’s given up her big advantage: in Indy, her fellow American participant in this race Claire Donahue turned before Vollmer. Vollmer made her money in 2012 going all-out on the first 50 and being able to hold on coming home. Donahue also happens to swim very hard on her first 50, though.
Both Donahue (health reasons) and Vollmer (choosing to train only singles) haven’t had the same training as they’ve had in the past, though, so the rest of the world has a very good chance to earn a lot of medals.
Enter Australia’s Alicia Coutts. She was a stabilizing force in London with 5 Olympic medals, and hasn’t let up one bit this year. She leads the world with a 57.18, and has swum well enough in her other races as well that makes her appear to be a good bet to wind up on the podium in Barcelona.
Another swimmer who has also been out-of-her-mind is Canadian Katerine Savard. She didn’t have a very good Olympics in 2012, but has bookended it with two fantastic years (2011 and 2013) that show where her potential is. She unfortunately didn’t make the team in the 50 fly, where she has since broken the Canadian Record, but that gives her a chance to be focused on this 100 and the 200 afterward.
Savard is swimming well in Kazan at the World University Games this week, and she was good in late June in Montreal, and she was good in early June in Mission Viejo. 10 years ago, this run of success she’s had would be scary. In the modern day, it’s fairly encouraging. Expect a 57-low at least in Barcelona.
There’s two strong Scandinavians in this race: Sarah Sjostrom from Sweden and Jeanette Ottesen from Denmark. They’ve both been matching 57.63’s this year. Sjostrom is the old World Record holder in the event and came up just a bit short at the Olympics, finishing in 4th place.
Ottesen has spent a lot of time this year remaking her freestyle and going through some growing pains, but her butterfly continues to look very good, including a 57.7 in Canet in mid-June.
China’s Lu Ying was the silver medalist at last year’s Olympic Games behind Vollmer, and though there’s not a ton of information coming out of China in-year, she was a solid 57.9 at China’s National Championship meet. That’s enough to be confident that she can get into the final, but not enough to know that she can medal.
Ellen Gandy, who finaled for Great Britain last year, won’t swim at Worlds this year as she’s transitioning to Australian citizenship.
Italy’s Ilaria Bianchi is a swimmer I really like. Unlike many of the Italian women, she had no post-Olympic swoon, and has developed a bit of a reputation as a big-meet swimmer. With times to medal in Barcelona likely to be a bit slower than it was in London, Bianchi is very much in the hunt.
If you’re looking for a good dark horse pick, look no further than Greece’s Kristel Vourna. She was 12th at the Olympics last year, and this year trained under new Alabama coach Dennis Pursley. Her 100 times haven’t been her best, but there was a glimmer of hope at the Santa Clara Grand Prix at the end of May: a 26.62 in the 50 fly that almost broke her own National Record. Last year, she had a May meet to rest for (the European Championships) whereas this year she didn’t. Generally, though, she’s a big taper swimmer, so don’t count her out of a high finish.
For the medals, though, the pick is Coutts. Post-Olympic World Championship meets are a whole different animal than pre-Olympic World Championships, as the history shows, and Coutts has pushed through and seems to still be hungry to be at the top of the world.
Vollmer is too good to fall much further than silver, though, and among the big medal contenders she should still be the fastest starter. Bronze is a real toss-up, but I’m going to take a little bit of an upset and pick the Italian Record holder Bianchi to sneak in and make her big statement.
Our top 8 picks, with the best finishes since January 1, 2010.
1. Alicia Coutts, Australia, 56.85
2. Dana Vollmer, USA, 55.98
3. Ilaria Bianchi, Italy, 57.27
4. Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden, 56.79
5. Lu Ying, China, 56.87
6. Katerine Savard, Canada, 57.40
7. Jeanette Ottesen, Denmark, 57.25
8. Claire Donahue, United States, 57.42
Darkhorse: Kristel Vourna, Greece, 58.31
This is not the first time I have seen the claim that Dana Vollmer took her races out hard in 2012 and that her front-end speed was her advantage or whatnot. But I cannot find the numbers to back this up.
Yes, she was usually first to the 50, but she also had the fastest 2nd 50 of the fields she was in. Also, when she is winning her races by a second and going faster than anyone else has ever, isn’t it expected that she’d be out fast comparative to the field?
In the Olympic final (I could not find split times for the prelims or semis), she not only had the fastest backhalf (by half a second), but… Read more »
Vollmer’s Olympic performance in 100m fly was overwhelming. After everybody else started to struggle, Dana just continued executing those long fly strokes until the end. There was no noticeable change in her stroke and your data, smallest difference between 1st 50 to 2nd 50, is completely in line with the scene. Only an athlete who’s in excellent shape can swim like that.
It would be interesting to know how it was at the US Trials. I think those singles were already visible but don’t know if the data tells something else.
Dana Vollmer has decided to give an ‘Olympic curse’ a try herself. I believe she will be succesful in doing so. As untapered Sjöström evidenced at Swedish Nationals, she is capable of below 57. Maybe I cannot evaluate this event in a fully unbiased way but here is a correct order anyway:
1) Sjöström (SWE)
2) Coutts (AUS)
3) Ottesen (DEN)
I hope Sjoestrom will medal this time around, it’s been long time after 2009.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for Coutts to win her first individual world title in the 100m fly. But she will have her challenges, and I am interested to see how Katerine Savard. I wonder if Savard has tapered too early though. Her 50m fly time at the Summer Universiade was nothing but impressive for her. I’ll probably wake up in the early hours of the morning just to check the 100m fly results from the Universiade.
And I had to wake up at 12 and then go back to sleep to watch universiade.
Barcelona will be worse for me.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if Lu Ying won. We never know with the Chinese girls.
But we are not last year.
I see a very very very close race with 5 or 6 girls within 0.2 s.
Alicia Coutts in first but with a very short margin.
Behind, anything is possible. Headache to choose but I agree with Mr Keith on Ilaria Bianchi. She can win a medal. She has the momentum with her gold medal at the last short course world championships.
Thanks Bobo for considering Ilaria Bianchi in the medal hunt. Last year she went 57.27 in London after swimming her PB in May in Debrecen that was 58.31. And in SC season she took the crown both in Chartres and in Istanbul, so it means she can focus very well on the races that really count. She had 58.14 and 58.49 this year under heavy training, if she keeps calm during the event don’t really know what she’s capable of. By now my predictions are:
1) Coutts
2) Sjostroem
3) Vollmer
I hope I’m wrong 🙂
i hardly think an s/c gold medal from 8 months ago is “momentum”
if there is momentum in swimming then it would come from a great swim at worlds or a recent meet. not a s/c meet last year
You can admit it’s good to win a world gold medal for the confidence.
My picks: Coutts, Sjöström, Vollmer, and a 4th place for Jeanette, although I would love to pick her higher I think the 50 is her better race this year.
I really don’t know what to think of Sarah Sjöström. She swam crazy times on butterfly in 2009 with the magical suits. Since then she’s far from these times. It also looks like she takes freestyle very seriously.
Sjoestrom is not a suit swimmer.
Everyone could see that she was super talented in 2009 already, even if she was in suit. It’s the same with Cate Campble. She swam crazy times in 2008/2009 too, but everyone could see that she was very talented.
Sjoestrom is always fast, extremely fast in season, but either only marginally faster in championships, or a bit slower. I think her problem is that she’s too talented and swim too many events very well that she cannot focus. She’s swimming 50/100/200 free. 50/100 fly, all three relays. All of which are very competitive events. I think she might drop 50 fly.
Never said she was a suit swimmer but in 2009 she was in 56.06. Since then, she’s in 56 high or 57 low.
Not only that, Sjoestrom also had to swim both prelims and finals of the relays, like in London where she had to swim prelims and final of 4×100 free, while other swimmers like Vollmer had the luxury to be fresh to swim only one event.
I think Sjoestrom should only focus on 100 free and fly, and the relays to win gold in 100 fly and medal in 100 free.
The 100 fly final was on day 2 and she had only this race that day.
But on day 1 she swam prelims and final of 4×100 free
A little reminder of what happened last year in London.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2L12bpUsSs
Every time I watch the race, I think she could have swum a world record for ages, perhaps 0.5s faster than her 55.98, without this bad touch.
I agree.
54 low? common now..
Dana Vollmer’s world record is 55.98… so a 54 is pretty hard to get.
Naya Missy – he was referring to a typo that I’ve since corrected. Sorry ’bout that!