2025 World Championships
- July 27 – August 3, 2025 (pool swimming)
- Singapore, Singapore
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Day 5 Prelims Heat Sheet
We have made it to day five of the 2025 World Championships and there are five events for this morning’s prelims session, and some of the are heavy hitters.
After a few days in a row of more men’s events than women’s events, we have shifted the script this morning and we will have three women’s events and two men’s events, including one women’s relay.
The meet will start with the women’s 100 freestyle, where multiple medalists will be battling it out. Torri Huske was one of the favorites coming into the meet. She sits as the 2nd seed with the 52.29 she swam to win silver in Paris, just behind Sarah Sjostrom, who is taking the year off to have a baby. Huske swam very well at US Trials in the event, setting the fastest time in the world this year at 52.43, but that was before she was hit with the illness overtaking the American, and some of the other countries, swimmers.
This will be Huske’s first individual event after she withdrew from the women’s 100 fly on day one, where she was also one of the favorites. She swam the women’s 4×100 freestyle relay that evening, where she split 52.88 to set the 5th fastest split in the field. This wasn’t her best split ever but it seemed like she was rounding a corner. Then, yesterday, she swam butterfly on the US mixed medley relay prelims, where she went 58.47. If her freestyle is in form, she could challenge for the title, or if it is more like her butterfly, she could miss the semifinal entirely.
She will be joined in the event by Gretchen Walsh, who also has shown signs of the illness but bounced back for a 54.73 100 fly to win the gold, Mollie O’Callaghan, who won the 200 free gold but has been dealing with an injury, and Marrit Steenbergen, who has been absolutely blowing this meet out of the water splitting two 51-second relay splits already.
Nine heats of the women’s 100 freestyle will be followed by five heats of men’s 200 backstroke. Hubert Kos is the far and away favorite to walk home with the gold, especially after he broke his own Hungarian National record in the 100 backstroke earlier this week. American Jack Aikins looked like he was going to be a threat, but he is another victim of the stomach flu and had a very rough 100.
100 backstroke champion Pieter Coetze will also be swimming the event, and he is clearly in excellent form despite swimming at the World University Games just last week.
The women’s 200 breaststroke will be next, and American Kate Douglass has looked incredible this week. She finished 2nd in the 100 breaststroke and was the fastest swimmer on the American 4×100 freestyle relay, splitting 51 in both the prelims and the finals. She will be racing Evgeniia Chikunova who has the World Record, but was just off her best in the 100 breast earlier this week, finishing 5th.
Also in the event will be surprise 100 breaststroke champion Anna Elendt, who will be in the heat two of four, the first circle seeded heat along with Japanese swimmer Satomi Suzuki, Great Britain’s Angharad Evans, and Alex Walsh. Suzuki had a great swim in the 100, finishing 4th and dropping time. Evans meanwhile did not even make it to the semifinal despite having the fastest time in the world this year coming into the meet. Walsh did not swim the 100 breaststroke, but she finished with the silver in the 200 IM and she had an exceptional breaststroke leg in that race, almost catching World Record holder Summer McIntosh.
The final individual race of the session will be the men’s 200 breaststroke where World Record holder Qin Haiyang will be in heat three of five, and looking to repeat his 100 breaststroke championship performance. With Leon Marchand and Zac Stubblety-Cook scratching the event, he is the likely favorite, but there are a host of athletes behind him who are waiting to pounce.
One such swimmer is NAB’s Kirill Prigoda, who was disqualified in the men’s 100 breaststroke, but had a massive split on the mixed 4×100 medley relay, beating Qin. He also just finished 2nd in the 50 breaststroke.
Other contenders are Olympic bronze medalist Caspar Corbeau from the Netherlands and Nicolo Martinenghi from Italy, who won the silver in the 100 breaststroke despite being sick. and Ippei Watanabe, the current top seed in the event with the 2:06.94 from last March
The final event of the session will be one heat of the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay where 10 teams will be competing for eight spots in the final. The favorites of the United States, China, and Australia should make it through to the final comfortably, as long as there are no disqualifications. I say should because at this meet, anything has been possible and absolutely nobody is safe, as we saw in the mixed 4×100 medley.
Top Seeds
- Women’s 100 Free: Mollie O’Callaghan (AUS)- 52.24
- Men’s 200 Back: Jack Aikins (USA)- 1:54.25
- Women’s 200 Breast: Kate Douglass (USA)- 2:19.24
- Men’s 200 Breast: Ippei Watanabe (JPN)- 2:06.94
- Women’s 4×200 Freestyle Relay: Australia- 7:38.08
I’ll be interested to see how Douglass transitions from 100 to 200. Almost every dual breaststroker uses the same technique in both with minor adjustments. Douglass is the only one whose preferred 200 style looks totally different than the strokes she has been using this week at 100.
At trials her 200 was not as long and smooth as normal and looked like a hybrid. But that was opposite of the scheduling here. She had 200 first. Maybe with this rotation she can get 100 tempo out of her system.
Day __ of asking, where can I see the world aquatics post race interviews or at least the interviews Beisel’s does??!
Why don’t you just watch any feed that is not Peacock or NBC?
They’re free and they have global feed/official broadcast.
Just use VPN to CBC (Canada) or Eurosport (any European country)
CBC replays of entire session, world feed
Thank you for that info. I use CBC for Diamond League replays. I didn’t realize they had full replays of swimming sessions.
Sending my best and healthiest vibes to Torri and Jack!!! Truly hurt my heart watching the 100 back heats, I just want him in this final.
this week has been so stressful. i feel like the illness stuff has been very volatile and abrupt — like gretchen feeling too sick to swim a double and then swimming well the next day & gemmell swimming very well all week until her final.
maybe theyve recovered by now!
4×2 lineups:
RSA 🇿🇦 Canny, Nel, Robertson, Van Rensburg
ITA 🇮🇹 Biagiotti, Mascolo, Nannucci, Morini
GBR 🇬🇧 Schlosshan, Wood, Hope, Anderson
CHN 🇨🇳 Yu, Yu, Wu, Yang
AUS 🇦🇺 Webb, Jansen, Casey, Castelluzzo
USA 🇺🇸 Manuel, Peplowski, Moesch, Sims
CAN 🇨🇦 Jansen, Angove, Cosgrove, Douthwright
HUN 🇭🇺 Molnar, Ugrai, Padar, Abraham
JPN 🇯🇵 Ikemoto, Namba, Kobori, Kajimoto
KOR 🇰🇷 Park, Kim, Park, Jo
Gemmell obviously not going straight to finals so she’s out. Weinstein, Ledecky and 2 fastest from heats?
AUS putting 3 straight to finals and picking fastest from heats.
If Canada makes the final and Summer leads off, does she go faster than the individual winning time??
moesch?? i guess gemmell is hurting, interesting tho as 2 other people on the team i *think* have faster PBs (grimes and AW) although neither swam it at trials this year, but grimes was in the trials final last year
have to suppose they are seeing how torri does in the 100 prior to making a final decision for nighttime with weinstein & ledecky already penciled in for finals, i suppose 2 spots are up for grabs?
I think it makes sense to give Moesch a shot. They will qualify for finals regardless so it may be good to test the waters.
oh yeah i dont think they will fall behind both of south africa and korea. i just think its interesting to go with moesch there with PBs, although i guess she is the next fastest who is *there* from this years trials so sure? Also AW & Grimes were both on the WR relay for SCW as well
Manuel makes alot of sense, i figured she would be there as there was a high likelihood they put 3 thru to finals (although apparently not what ended up happening)
Torri is not swimming in 4×200 final. Why would they swim Torri in 4×200 final?
Makes no sense.
Walsh is doing the 200 breast prelims today.
Grimes has been off of last year in middle-distance and distance free. I think Moesch’s time from this year’s trials is a clearer indicator of what you might expect at this meet.
Also, Grimes hasn’t swum yet, so hope she is healthy for the 400 IM.
Yu Zidi in 4×200.
Interesting.
C’mon Torri, I hope she’s healthy as possible and can power through. I can’t imagine her confidence is high after the mixed medley relay, it looked like she was crying