The Twitter Stans are in many ways the pulse of American swimming. While not everyone agrees with everything they say, they have a way of feeling the way many among the fandom feel, and the above meme (verging on a modern day political cartoon) hit paydirt.
After years of dominating swimming on the international stage, at the Olympics and World Championships alike, the United States’ top swimmers have been struggling in recent years to be as dominant as they once were.
There’s hope on the horizon though, and it’s coming in the form of the elite youngsters who’ve been dominating the competition at the 2024 Junior Pan Pacific Championships.
They’ve already broken eight meet records, including Leah Shackley in the 100 and 200 back (Shackley’s heading to NC State this fall, which feels like a perfect fit), and Friday’s races saw 15-year-old Luka Mijatovic shatter a 22-year-old National Age Group record in the 400 free a day after going 1:47.9 in the 200 free and 7:56.9 in the 800 free in the same session.
Newly-15-year-old Audrey Derivaux continues to soar, going 57.99 to win the 100 fly and 2:09.14 to win the 200, and another newly-15-year-old Rylee Erisman swam 53.76 in the 100 free to immediately make herself a candidate for senior national teams in the 400 free relay.
Even some names not as familiar, like 18-year-olds Logan Robinson and Gregg Enoch and 17-year-old Kennedi Dobson are making waves.
This is the most energy the U.S. has felt behind an international team in a while. Swimmers hitting best times halfway across the world, performing under pressure, and alighting imaginations about their possibilities.
The 2023 World Championships in Japan saw the U.S. take a shocking hit in the overall rankings, placing second for the first time since 2001 and only the second time ever. While they managed to rack up the most medals overall, Team USA’s swimmers only managed to bring home seven gold medals in swimming, far below Australia’s 13. Not to mention, it was a far cry from the 17 golds that the U.S. had secured the year prior in Hungary.
The U.S. almost suffered a similar fate at the 2024 Paris Olympics just weeks ago. After decades of coming out on top of the medal table, the U.S. was practically seconds away from taking second to Australia in the gold medal count, just managing to secure two victories on the final day of competition to give them one up over Australia.
It was even tougher to watch as the U.S. missed out on gold in events that they had held an iron grip on for years, like the men’s backstroke events and the men’s 4×100 medley relay.
It’s not just the performance of Team USA’s swimmers that’s been taking a hit recently either, as USA Swimming saw its membership and finances take a dip over the last year or so. Despite bouncing back in record fashion after COVID-19, USA Swimming lost 18,000 members in 2023, and it’s no secret that people’s confidence in Team USA’s coaching staff has been waning recently.
There was also the issue of USA Swimming losing more than $17 million in net assets in 2022, with limited clear responses from the board of directors and leadership.
All in all, the system hasn’t seemed to be working too well over the last few years, with the Paris Games clearly emphasizing the need for a reset button.
The swimmers at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships are the future of elite swimming in the U.S., and it’s now up to the system to nurture these athletes and get them over that hump. The talent is undeniable, but basically the whole U.S. team will go through a coaching change and be pushed through the system before LA 2028.
Will the system work? The future and the motor of the USA Swimming machine depends on it.
swimtwt mention on swimswam is crazy 😭😭
“just managing to secure two victories on the final day of competition to give them one up over Australia” – Just a comment on this statement alone, the implication that the US swimmers barely won the men’s mile and the women’s 400 medley relay, almost as if those swimmers were lucky to win those events, when both were won in world record fashion just seems wrong.
Swimswam sure gets a lot of content out of USA swimming having a down Olympics