2019 World Championships: Pancake Hot Take – Day 4 Finals

2019 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

• All sports: Friday, July 12 – Sunday, July 28, 2019
• Pool swimming: Sunday, July 21 – Sunday, July 28, 2019
• The Nambu University Municipal Aquatics Center, Gwangju, Korea
• Meet site
• Competition Schedule
• FinaTV Live Stream
• Entry Lists
• Results

We are now in the thick of the 2019 World Championships, and to make sure you’re up to speed with all the action, we’re giving you a video recap of what we think of the racing. This is Pancake Hot Take, where we rate the overall racing of every Finals Session on a scale of 1-5 pancakes, and give you our highlights from each night. 

Day 4 Finals, best day of racing yet! We saw a huge world record, a couple defending champs regain their titles, and a come from behind surprise at the end. For that, I give Day 4…

4 PANCAKES

Let’s not kid ourselves. Kristof Milak‘s UTTER DESTRUCTION of Michael Phelps’ 2009 World Record in the 200 fly was the race of the day, surprise of the day, and definitely the syrup on top. Milak was out in 52.88, matching Phelps’ first 100 split to the hundredth, then gobbled up the world record line on the back off,  coming home in 57.85 to shatter the WR of 1:51.51 in 1:50.73. Now that we’ve recognized that every other swim is pretty much an honorable mention, let’s dive into the rest of the session.

• Race of the Day: Women’s 200 Free. Federica Pellegrini once again came from behind on the last 50 to rundown the 400 free champ (Ledecky in 2017, Titmus in 2019) to defend her world title after swearing off of the event 2 years ago. That also marks the 8th worlds in a row that Pellegrini has medaled in the 200 free.
• Surprise of the Day: 4×100 Mixed Medley Relay, where the Aussies came back from a 1.3 deficit on the USA thanks to a blistering 51.10 free split by Cate Campbell to win the event by a mere .02
• Syrup on Top: Caeleb Dressel is also looking to be in world record form, posting 2 47.3 100 frees in prelims and semis, and looking like he’s swimming the 200 free while doing it. I think we are going to see a 46 tomorrow night.

Stay tuned for Pancake Hot Takes every day after finals. And until then… stay hungry.

See Pancake Hot Take – Day 3 Finals Here

See Pancake Hot Take – Day 2 Finals Here

See Pancake Hot Take – Day 1 Finals Here