2020 ISL Match 9 – Day 2 Live Recap

2020 INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING LEAGUE – MATCH 9

• Monday, November 9th: 10AM – 12 noon CET (4AM – 6AM U.S. Eastern, 6PM – 8PM Japan)
• Tuesday, November 10th: 10AM – 12 noon CET (4AM – 6AM U.S. Eastern, 6PM – 8PM Japan)
• Duna Arena – Budapest, Hungary
• Short Course Meters (SCM) Format
• ISL Technical Handbook
• 2020 ISL Scoring Format
• 2020 ISL Prize Money and Bonuses
• How To Watch
• Omega Results
• Teams: Energy Standard/Iron/Tokyo Frog Kings/Toronto Titans
• Match #9 Full Results (PDF)

Day 2 of ISL 2020’s penultimate meet of the regular season gets underway this morning as Energy Standard, Iron, Tokyo, and Toronto make their final push before moving on to the semi-finals.

On day 1, Energy Standard got out to an early lead ahead of the field and are looking good to pick up their third straight win this season. Tokyo follows in second with a decent lead over the other two teams with Iron and Toronto in 3rd and 4th, respectively.

Team Scores After Day 1

You can read a full preview of this match here.

Live Recap and Analysis: Ben Dornan

DAY 2 EVENTS

WOMEN’S 100 FREE

Sarah Sjostrom picked up her 5th win of the meet in the 100 with a solid 51.64 swim. Sjostrom was 4th at the 50 with a 25.30 and powered through the last with a 26.34 to surpass the field. She managed to jackpot Beckmann from Iron to secure 10 points for herself.

Heemskerk made it a 1-2 finish for Energy Standard, scoring 7 points to give her team a total of 17.

Despite Kromowidjojo’s solid third-place finish, Toronto actually tied them in overall points with 6 and Tokyo out-scoring them with 8.

MEN’S 100 FREE

With Manaudou and Morozov resting for Energy Standard, the field was a little weaker than usual. Answering back from a tied 3rd place in the women’s event, Blake Pieroni picked up his first-ever ISL win in the 100 freestyle. On his way to victory, Pieroni jackpotted yesterday’s 50 freestyle winner Bruno Fratus of the Tokyo Frog Kings.

Pieroni’s teammate Chadwick was fourth to compliment Chadwick’s win.

In Manaudou’s absence, Energy Standard still performed a solid 2-5 finish to come second place in the event with 11 points. Without Morozov, the Frog Kings suffered a bit more with a total of only 3 points.

WOMEN’S 200 FLY

It’s a perfect 4-for-4 for Hasegawa in 200 fly this season. Hasegawa remains one of the only swimmers to remain undefeated in an event across their entire ISL career; a feat that is certainly proving valuable for Tokyo as they make a push to maintain their second-place ranking at this meet.

Tokyo teammate Shimizu was a solid second here and without Hasegawa jackpotting in the event, the total for Tokyo here was 16 points.

Katinka Hosszu was probably the biggest external threat for Tokyo here but they were able to hold her off as she came in third at the finish. Hosszu and Ugolkova scored 8 points together, just behind Harvey and Jakabos’ total of 9.

MEN’S 200 FLY

Chad le Clos swam a fairly smooth 200 butterfly to pick up the win here, in a self-described effort to “experiment with tactics” here. The tactic was good enough to get his hand on the wall ahead of the field. The win included a jackpotting of both Iron swimmers and Toronto swimmer Mack Darragh.

The swim for le Clos brought him only 7.5 points away from teammate Sjostrom in the Match MVP race. The race will persist as they each continue to race individually including their participation in their respective skins.

Tokyo joined Energy Standard as the only other team to have to score swimmers here as  Kobori and Honda were 3rd and 4th for the Frog Kings. Lelliott and Zirk rounded out the race with 4th for Toronto and 5th for Energy Standard, respectively.

WOMEN’S 100 BACK

Kylie Masse for the Toronto Titan’s has joined Hasegawa today as a 4-for-4 winner. She picked up her fourth straight victory in the event with a season-best and near personal best of 56.04.  The most important contribution here from Masse was the jackpotting of both of Iron’s swimmers. That really helped Toronto as they make an effort to surpass Iron for third place in team standings.

Seebohm and Davies had a solid 2-4 for Energy Standard, with Kubova and Shirai following in 3rd and 5th.

Lisa Bratton has been a solid number 2 to Masse thus far in this event but dropped off a bit here, ending in 6th to contribute 3 points to her team’s 15 point total.

MEN’S 100 BACK

Going into. the race Kolesnikov was the favorite here with the fastest time in the individual event so far this season and an even quicker time from a relay leadoff. Kolesnikov was not, however, the favorite at the 50 when he touched in 7th with a 24.61.

Kolesnikov had a massive last 50 though, swimming a field-leading 25.04 to come within 0.5 seconds of even splitting the race.

The other two in the heat who have won the event this season; Irie and Ryan went 3-4 as Iron’s Glinta was able to sneak ahead for second place.

WOMEN’S 100 IM

It was all Imai in the 100 IM as she made her way to her third win of the season in the event. Imai swam a 58.04 to beat out Energy Standard’s Sjostrom and Shkrudai who have both also notched wins this season in the event. Imai was slower here than she was in either of her first two victories, swimming a 58.04 compared to a previous 57.094 and 58.02.

Imai wasn’t quick enough to jackpot any swimmers here but she and her teammate Teramura in fourth made sure that Tokyo won the event with 14 points.

Energy Standard’s two women scored a total of 11 points for second place. The bottom half of the event included a Toronto duo scoring 6 points and an Iron duo scoring 4. Notably, Katinka Hosszu finished 8th here for Iron.

MEN’S 100 IM

Here was Marco Orsi for his third victory in the 100 IM this season. He made the most of a Manaudou and Morozov absence in order to get his hand on the wall first in a 10 point jackpot swim of 51.74. That sits in the middle of his two other swims that he has won with this year.

His teammate Toumarkin nearly allowed for a 1-2 finish from Iron but ultimately slipped to 3rd place, meaning that Iron would score a total of 16 points to win the event.

In another event where Manaudou would be in contention for the win, Energy Standard’s Zhilkin was the only scorer in the event with a 52.37 for second place.

Siobhan Haughey won this event at the first meet of the season and is closing out her regular-season efforts in the 200 freestyle with another victory. In Asian record style, Haughey notched a 15 point victory by stealing points from teammate Harvey, along with a one from Iron and one from Toronto.

In second and third place, Smith scored 7 points for Toronto and Andrusenko was scored 6 for Iron.

Tokyo’s Aoki and Smith were able to escape the jackpotting from 4th and 5th, coming in second place with 9 points.

MEN’S 200 FREE

Danas Rapsys has emerged as a dominant and essential asset for Energy Standard throughout this season. He picked up a third 200 freestyle victory with a solid 1:42.18. The now 200/400 victor was quick enough to jackpot teammate Zirk and Iron’s Mignon for a total of 12 in the event.

Tokyo did what they needed to do to maintain their second-place standing here, picking up 11 points from 2nd and 5th.

In the battle for third place, Toronto had the upper hand here by out-scoring Iron’s 5 points with Pieroni’s and Krasnykh combined total of 9.

WOMEN’S 50 FLY

Similar to the 100 IM, Sjostrom wasn’t quite on par with her previous performances at Match 9 and she missed out on the win. As the Iron duo of Henique and Kromowidjojo were first and second, they managed to take more than half of the total points considering Henique’s winning 19-point jackpot.

That jackpot meant that points were stolen from both Toronto’s and Tokyo’s swimmers. Further, both Tokyo swimmers had a point deducted from them as they weren’t quite at the minimum time requirement.

Energy Standard scored points from 3rd and 4th with Sjostrom and Banic putting in a solid effort.

MEN’S 50 FLY

There’s really nothing much to be said about this race aside from the fact that winner Nicholas Santos has certainly brought the fire this season, earning some of the biggest jackpots that we’ve seen this season. This swim today was no exception as he destroyed the competition and picked up a massive 30 points, stealing from everyone except Tokyo’s Kawamoto.

This effort may have been just what Iron needed to ensure that Toronto will not be able to catch them for third. The 21.78 swim was only 0.03 off his own world record from back in 2018.

WOMEN’S 100 BREAST

Benedetta Pilato secured another ISL win in her debut season with this 1:04.00 swim in the 100 breaststroke. Pilato has gotten some solid practice in and is looking to be in top form as she prepares to move on to the semi-finals. It’s possible that Pilato will make it all the way to the final meet before having to go up against King who she lost out to in the very first match of the season.

It was an exciting 3-way tie for the second-place spot, with one swimmer from Iron, Energy, and Tokyo splitting the 18 points designated to the 2-4 spot.

Toronto was the weakest team here as Ulyett and Wog were sixth and seventh to score a mere 5 points total.

MEN’S 100 BREAST

Just has Santos did in the 50 fly, Iron teammate Emre Sakci blew away the field and has a near world record-breaking performance in the 100 breaststroke. He has been a key pickup thus far in the breast sprints and his 19 point jackpot here was no exception.

Sakci’s 55.74 was good enough to steal points from one swimmer on each team, leaving 7 points for Energy in second, 6 points for Tokyo in third, and 5 points for Toronto in fourth.

These past few victories by Iron are looking like enough to secure a third-place finish and might give them the push they need to overtake Tokyo for second place.

4×100 MIXED FREE RELAY

WOMEN’S 400 IM

Like her teammate Hasegawa in the 200 fly, Yui Ohashi for the Tokyo Frog Kings remains undefeated this season in the 400 IM. Ohashi picked up a fourth win here including a 15 point jackpot, stealing a point from every other team.

Sakiko Shimizu made it 1-2 for the Frog Kings, with her and Ohashi delivering the majority of the points in the event to Tokyo.

Tokyo certainly made it hard for Iron in their campaign for the second-place spot as Hosszu was the only Iron member to score and got 5 points to Tokyo’s total 22.

MEN’S 400 IM

This race was no exception to Tokyo’s stellar 400 IM record. Kosuke Hagino delivered his third straight win in the event, jackpotting one swimmer each from Toronto and Iron. His teammate Tomoru Honda made it in for 5th place, allowing Tokyo’s total points to reach 16.

Iron’s Verraszto had a solid second-place swim of 4:03.55, just 1.35 behind Hagino to score 7 points. Energy Standard was 3-4 and out-scored Iron with 11 points. Toronto trailed in the event with only 3 points from sixth.

This win by Tokyo made up a bit for the massive effort by Iron in the previous few events to close the gap between the two teams. With a dominant women’s skins race, Iron looks to close that gap in the coming events.

On the men’s side, Iron’s Santos has been the fastest in the individual 50 fly but Kawamoto will look to outlast him for Tokyo.

WOMEN’S 50 SKINS – FREESTYLE

ROUND 1:

It’s the exact same top 4 that we saw last time Iron and Energy went head to head in the women’s freestyle skins. Iron’s two were the quickest finishers, Henique notching a 10-point jackpot. Sjostrom and Heemskerk will look to move up from 3rd and 4th to vie for a spot in the final round.

ROUND 2:

ROUND 3:

Sjostrom did it again, adding yet another skins win to her resume. She had a nearly perfectly consistent set of times in the skins, swimming a 26.06, 26.04, and a 26.18 by round. Along with the skins win, she looks to have secured the MVP title for herself.

MEN’S 50 SKINS

ROUND 1:

In a rather expected top four swim, Iron managed to get 2 swimmers into the top 4 in the form of Santos and Sakci. Compared to Tokyo’s sole Kawamoto, the margin between second place Tokyo and Iron may thin even more in round 2. Chad le Clos hangs in for Energy Standard, looking to win his first-ever butterfly skins race.

ROUND 2:

This was key for Tokyo; shutting out Iron from having any shot in the final round. Kawamoto moved up to the top spot in round 2, best Chad le Clos who he will now face in the final round. Kawamoto will rely on his endurance and underwaters to come out victorious and claim his first skins victory.

ROUND 3:

Le Clos and Kawamoto were even at the halfway mark but it was le Clos who had the power through the last 25 and made it to the wall first. Le Clos beat Kawamoto by only 0.18 to close out the meet for his winning Energy Standard.

CLUB STANDINGS AFTER DAY 2: