This morning on the SwimSwam breakdown, we discuss Virginia’s MASSIVE men’s Class of 2025, the conclusion of the World Cup circuit, and Regan Smith‘s new American record. See full list of topics below:
- 0:00 SwimSwam Breakdown Introduction
- 0:19 Impact of UVA Class of 2025 including #1 Thomas Heilman and #2 Maximus Williamson
- 6:10 How do we see Kaylee McKeown/Qin Haiyang moving into Olympic Year after World Cup?
- 12:19 What does Regan Smith‘s AM Record in 200y fly say about where she’s at?
- 20:39 Why aren’t there a ton of best times happening at Pan American Games?
- 25:14 Is the UVA men’s Class of 2025 the best recruiting class ever? (In the SwimSwam era) See contenders below:
I’m in the “This 200 Fly SCY AR doesn’t mean much” camp. The argument about the underwaters would hold more weight if those underwaters helped her win gold in the 200 fly at Worlds the past two years. But all I saw was Regan destroying Summer on every underwater and then Summer beating her above the water. Maybe Regan is expending too much oxygen on her underwaters for the LCM 2FL?
And I also thought back to that amazing 200 Fly LCM American Record at the time trial last spring and then her times at Worlds in the fly. As much as it would be great for it to have been a taper issue, history has shown us it’s… Read more »
The last two WC 200 Fly races in which McIntosh has won she has outperformed Smith above water in each one. The only difference this year was Summer taking it out much faster in the first 100 compared to 2022 when she was behind both Zhang and Regan at the 100.
Don’t forget that when Regan Smith broke 200 fly AR, she just came down from altitude training, there was no semis, and no pressure whatsoever.
anyone know what meets K Douglass will be swimming soon?
I imagine you’ll see quite a few of the top swimmers including K Douglass compete at the US Open LCM in just over a month from now.
Regan did win the lead off head to head 100 backstroke in the 400m Medley Relay. That was a BIG mental win which says I CAN win.
to be fair though, kaylee has always not been great leading off the medley relay. even when she was in 57.47 form in tokyo, she was only a 58.01 lead off. Australia was just super lucky that Chelsea Hodges pulled out a 1:05.5 split out of nowhere and stayed close enough to Jacoby
58.01 is still a pretty good time for 100 backstroke. At Tokyo, Kaylee had a torn labrum and of course the women’s medley relay was at the end of the meet, so fatigue played a part in her not being able to match her WR time. At this year’s world’s, Kaylee swam 58.0 and 57.9 leading off the 2 (incl. mixed) medley relays. Again, these are pretty good times, albeit Regan swam 57.68 against her in the women’s relay.
Most of the people is probably gonna argue that the US lost that race because of the changeover but other reason they lost it because Jacoby is the only one with the fastest split while Smith, Huske and Weitzeil is slower than Australia and Canada swimmer .
Is that a mental win though? USA on paper were always going to win that relay so there was basically zero pressure on Regan to swim well, and then she swam well. She’s slower in individual races where it matters.
Every race is matters including on the relay and US is the favorite going into the relay but it’s not a guaranteed because they underperformed at world champs and Regan outsplit Mckeown proves she still can challenge her.
Big mental win is if she can beat Kaylee McKeown in individual events.
I expected a little more fanfare for Kaylee to be honest. First swimmer to ever do the backstroke triple at worlds. First woman to ever hold all 3 LCM backstroke world records. First person since Phelps in 2008 to break 2 world records in two different events in 24 hours. If we remove supersuit times then she’s the first person since Phelps in 2003 to do it. Only swimmer other than Ledecky to set 3 individual LCM WRs in a single year since super suits. When the only people you can compare her achievements to are Phelps and Ledecky that’s a pretty big deal.
But the discussion mostly felt like “well yeah she’s good but she was a bit… Read more »
I also think Smith is the one with the pressure. She had super high expectations since 2019 and has shown flashes of brilliance, but hasn’t lived up to the hype. Paris is likely her last chance for an Olympic gold while Kaylee already has 3. Kaylee’s legacy is already set regardless of what happens in Paris. Smith needs Paris to establish hers.
This. I thought YanYan was the one most able to look outside the red white & blue and appreciate Kaylee’s achievements. Regan is amazingly talented, but to date Kaylee has her number, especially in close races in pressured situations. She’s under similar pressure this time around, but seems to thrive off of it.
I can’t wait to see what these two women achieve over the next few years.
Yes but she also said Ledecky is gonna be the only one thats gonna win the gold for US next year and that means they only gonna win two gold which I thought was far fetched.
The Qin vs Kaylee conversation is interesting. I feel like Qin is under more pressure. He came a little out of nowhere to absolutely dominate the year before the Olympics so pressure is on to see if he can actually pull it off at the biggest meet.
Kaylee already has 3 Olympic golds and she hasn’t lost a 100 or 200 backstroke race since 2019. To be fair, she would have very likely lost the 100 back at worlds if she swam it last year. However, she has shown that killer instinct to always get her hand on the wall first, even when her times aren’t at her best.
Kaylee originally wasn’t going to worlds at all last year… Read more »
ZSC wants his WR back too. The one thing about Qin being so good across both distances is that he may be vulnerable to the specialist who throws all his eggs into the 200 basket.
I am a big fan of Coleman’s, but pre-Worlds he said, in response to commenters who argued that Kaylee doesn’t only swim fast in Oz and used as an example her Olympic winning time in the 100 back (just 0.02 off her own WR), “but it’s still slower”. Technically yes, but 0.02 off her own WR (which no-one but herself has got within a tenth of) was clear evidence against the myth that she can swim fast overseas. And surely the last 3 months have dispelled that myth forever.
Yes, I was surprised Coleman came up with that comment at the time. I was also a bit surprised that there wasn’t as much appreciation for just how amazing Kaylee’s achievements at the World Cup were as I thought there would be. (Yan Yan being the exception).
Credit to Yan Yan for giving a credit to Kaylee’s incredible record in Backstroke since 2021. Without her, SwIm Swam’s position is it’s a 50/50 coin toss Kaylee vs Regan in Paris. Hello! as elite as Regan is and while she is a threat, Kaylee has established herself as a clear leader.
Can’t wait for the “Kaylee only swims fast in Australia and Japan….and Berlin, Athens and Budapest. Paris will be a different story” hot takes.
I was a little dumbfounded when Coleman made that comment haha. Way to miss the bigger picture.
I think it’s understandable that a lot of the swimswam employees are biased towards Americans, but I still get surprised about the extent of that bias. Yanyan is a breath of fresh air.
Well she also said Ledecky is the only one that’s gonna win gold for the US next year so I thought that was weird.
Kaylee may have the pressure of going in the favourite but she had the same pressure in Tokyo, Budapest and Fukuoka and delivered when it mattered.
If Kaylee retires tomorrow she will still be a triple Olympic gold medallist and the first person to complete the back triple at World’s and be the WR holder in all 3 distances. She has secured her place in the Aus swimming pantheon and is racing to improve her already stellar legacy.
Regan does not have the luxury of having already had a successful Olympic experience and is racing with the pressure to deliver on the promise she showed when she smashed WRs back in 2019. She wants to be remembered as a… Read more »
She wants to be remembered as a Missy Franklin and not a Katie Hoff.
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Oh, this is an apt analogy.
Is it? Franklin is obviously a step above Hoff with the Olympic success but she peaked at 17 breaking a WR at a major international meet and then never set another PB in her main events. I’m sure Smith doesn’t want her PBs to always be those she set when she was 17
Franklin’s career was very rough at the end
What do the horn sounds mean in the podcasts?
signal to move on to the next topic
Interesting. Never heard that signal in other podcasts. Thanks
UVA men are on major fraud watch when the class of 25 gets to campus (assuming none of them decommit by then)
Please. Enough with the “fraud watch” nonsense and your UVA fixation.