Following a weekend of stellar performances in Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey and Russia’s Kliment Kolesnikov have been awarded the Championship Trophy for women and men, respectively. The award serves as a de facto “high point award,” with 5 points for an event win, 3 for a 2nd place finish, 2 for a 3rd and 1 for a 4th. A two point bonus was also awarded to each swimmer who set a new World Record during the championships.
National team rankings were also totalled from a similar 8 place scoring system, with the United States, who stood atop the medal table at the end of the meet, topping the list.
Top five women:
- Siobhan Haughey (HKG): 14
- Maggie MacNeil (CAN): 12
- Sarah Sjostrom (SWE): 11
- (TIE) Anastasia Gorbenko (ISR)/Louise Hansson (SWE)/Li Bingjie (CHN): 10
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Haughey and MacNeil, former NCAA teammates for the Michigan Wolverines, led the way in the women’s rankings and were the only two individual World Record breakers of the women’s meet. Haughey’s World Record came early in the competition, breaking Sarah Sjostrom’s 200 free World Record with a 1:50.31 to earn her 7 points. Haughey also won the 100 free and took bronze in 400 free, her first career medals at the Short Course World Championships.
Despite only swimming two events, Canada’s Maggie MacNeil secured a second place finish courtesy of her massive World Record swim in the 50 back. The University of Michigan swimmer undercut the previous World Record by over 3 tenths to win in 25.27. MacNeil also won the 100 fly gold individually while also winning gold as a member of Canada’s women’s 4×100 free relay and mixed 4×50 free relay. She also claimed a silver medal as a member of Canada’s women’s 4×100 medley relay.
Top five men:
- Kliment Kolesnikov (RUS): 13
- Nic Fink (USA): 12
- Daiya Seto (JPN): 11
- (TIE) Alberto Razzetti (ITA)/Shaine Casas: 8
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Russia’s Kliment Kolesnikov led the way on the men’s side, taking individual gold in the 50 back and 100 IM, while also taking a silver in the 100 back after being upset by the USA’s Shaine Casas. He also played an integral role in three of Russia’s relays, with the men’s 4×50 medley and 4×100 free relays taking gold and the 4×100 medley snagging the bronze.
The USA’s Nic Fink was the runner-up on the men’s side after medaling in all three breaststroke races, including gold in the 50 and 200 and bronze in the 100. Like Kolesnikov, Fink played a significant role on the American relays, winning another gold in the men’s 4×50 medley relay and silver in the men’s 4×100 medley and mixed 4×50 medley.
The lone individual World Record breaker on the men’s side, Florian Wellbrock of Germany, finished in sixth in the points table thanks to his masterful 1500 win and World Record.
Top 5 team scores:
- USA 993
- Italy 742
- Russia 736
- Netherlands 503
- Canada 475
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The United States led the way on the national team rankings, with 993 total points. Despite having two men finish in the top 5 of the individual points standings, the American women outscored their male counterparts 499 to 434. The American women also outscored Canada, the second-highest scoring women’s nation, by over 100 points.
The Italians finished in second and were led by their men’s team, which scored 463 points, the highest men’s total of the meet. They were led by Alberto Razzetti, who finished in a tie for fourth in the men’s individual points rankings thanks to a gold medal performance in the 200 fly and a bronze medal swim in the 200 IM. He also played a role in Italy’s gold medal winning 4×100 medley relay by swimming the prelim fly leg before being swapped for Matteo Rivolta in the final.
Sweden and Canada robbed
Nothing against Haughey, but the results are kind of skewed considering relays aren’t counted at all. Haughey had 2 individual golds, 1 WR, and 1 individual bronze. MacNeil had 2 individual golds, 1 WR, 2 relay golds and 1 relay silver. MacNeil also scratched individual events in order to participate in relays.
It’s just kind of hard to understand Haughey being the swimmer of the meet when MacNeil’s results are objectively much better.
There is no perfect scoring system.
If relays are scored, it will also create some unfairness as swimmers like Haughey will never have a chance for the trophy, just because her teammates aren’t strong enough to help her win relay medals.
I feel like they shouldn’t count for full points, but counting them for nothing is not accurate at all.
Find me one single swimmer who would say they would value one individual bronze over two relay golds and a silver.
It’s hard to take relays into account as it is not up to the individuals to decide if they want to swim relays or not. It is obvious that the hk swimming federation took Haughey out of relays, so her teammates would have a chance to swim at the meet and win some prize money. You can see from the prize money table that all hk swimmers (except for Haughey and Ho) relied on relays to make it to the list.
Is that obvious? That it was the federation’s decision?
Razzetti did just the qualification of the 4×100 medley relay because in the final he was replaced by Rivolta. Maybe you should talk about his performance in the 4×200 free relay