2019 Pro Swim Series – Des Moines: Night One Finals Live Recap

2019 PRO SWIM SERIES – DES MOINES

• March 6th-9th, 2019
• Wellmark YMCA, Des Moines, Iowa
• LCM (50m) pool
• Live Results
• Psych Sheets
• Live Stream – USA Swimming (all prelims sessions, Wednesday & Saturday finals)
• Thursday + Friday live stream NBC Sports

The 2019 Pro Swim Series – Des Moines stop kicks off tonight with the women’s and men’s miles. Reminder, PSS are held in Long Course Meters (LCM), so tonight’s mile is the 1500. The women’s mile tonight appears as if it will be a battle between two budding Chinese stars – Li Binjie and Wang Jianjiahe. Jianjahe is holding the top seed at 15:53.01, while Binjie is right behind at 15:53.80. In the men’s mile, Jordan Wilimovsky is the top seed at 14:46.93, just ahead of the yards American record holder, Zane Grothe (14:48.40).

Tonight’s session will be pretty quick, with just a total of 30 swimmers competing.

WOMEN’S 1500 – FINAL:

• World Record: Katie Ledecky – 15:20.48
• U.S. Open Record:  Katie Ledecky – 15:20.48
• American Record:  Katie Ledecky – 15:20.48
• PSS Record: Katie Ledecky – 15:20.48
• JR World Record:  Katie Ledecky – 15:28.36

• GOLD: Wang Jianjiahe – 15:46.69
• SILVER: Kristel Kobrich – 16:17.92
• BRONZE: Li Bingjie – 16:19.71

Jianjiahe wasted no time getting out to the early lead, and she didn’t look back. Rather, she expanded her lead throughout the race, roaring to new best time of 15:46.69. That time is 2nd in the world this year to none other than Katie Ledecky, who is leading currently at 15:45.59. Jianjiahe  held a very steady pace, only splitting 32 seconds for a 50 two times during the race. For reference, 15:46 is 1:03 100 pace, or, 31.5 50 pace, so she stayed right at that throughout the race.

Kristel Kobrich of Chile was 2nd in 16:17.92, after running down Li Bingjie around the 1050 mark. Binjie ended up 3rd after starting out close to Jianjiahe, faded little by little throughout the race.

MEN’S 1500 – FINAL:

• World Record: Sun Yang – 14:31.02
• U.S. Open Record: Peter Vanderkaay – 14:45.54
• American Record: Connor Jaeger – 14:39.48
• PSS Record: Jordan Wilimovsky – 14:53.12
• JR World Record: Mack Horton – 14:51.55

• GOLD: Anton Ipsen – 15:05.39
• SILVER: Jordan Wilimovsky – 15:05.44
• BRONZE:  Zane Grothe – 15:13.29

Anton Ipsen led throughout the race, but Jordan Wilimovsky closed the gap in the last several hundred meters, coming as close as 1-tenth of a second away from Ipsen, but never closer until the touch. Ipsen got his hand on the wall just .05 seconds ahead of Wilimovsky, establishing the fastest time in the world this year, an accolade which he already held. Ipsen was 15:16.19 back in January for what was until now the fastest time in the world this year. That makes Wilimovsky, and Zane Grothe, who finished in the 3rd, the 2nd and 3rd fastest times in the world this year.