Marchand Returns To Racing With Brutal Triple At Indy Summer Cup Day 4

2025 INDY SUMMER CUP

• Wednesday, June 25 – Saturday, June 28, 2025
• IUPUI Natatorium, Indianapolis, IN
• LCM (50 meters)
• SwimSwam Preview
• Psych Sheets
• How To Watch
• Live Results on Meet Mobile: “2025 Indy Summer Cup”

A significant portion of the swimmers on the US World Championship roster, along with several other big names, are racing this week in Indianapolis, treating swim fans to some relatively fast swimming as we approach this summer’s major international meets. That included Leon Marchand tonight, after the French swimmer DFS’ed the 200 fly and 400 free yesterday, but took on the 100 free, 20 back and 200 IM tonight.

Simone Manuel took a dominant victory in the women’s 100 freestyle on Day 4, winning the event by nearly a second to continue her great form this season. At U.S. Nationals she posted her fastest time since 2019 to take third and come within five-hundredths of an individual swim. Manuel was out tonight in 25.73, and despite Regan Smith closing the gap slightly on the second 50 touched first in 53.28, less than half a second off her season-best 52.83.

Smith knocked over a second off her previous best to go 54.15, showing some serious sprint speed in an off-event for her. She did not race the 100 free at U.S. nationals, but has certainly thrown her hat in the ring for future forays in the event.

She tripled up on Day 4, swimming the 200 back and the 200 IM in this finals session as well as the 100 free. She was up in the 200 back just 20 minutes later, where she took the win in 2:06.84. She had set a new meet record of 2:09.77 in the morning, and was significantly faster again in the final to swim exactly a second slower than she was at U.S. Nationals.

Miranda Grana, who will swim the 100 and 200 back for Mexico in Singapore next month, took third in 2:14.83, three seconds off her best from Mexican Nationals this year.

Smith placed first in the 200 IM as well to round off her session, posting a time of 2:10.35 to win by nearly seven seconds and shatter the meet record by more than four. She was out sub-1:00 in 59.49, and then split 40.44 on breaststroke and 30.42 in freestyle to set her season-best in the event.

In the Men’s 100 free, Chris Guiliano followed on from his meet record of 47.79 from the heats this morning to shave another seven-hundredths, going 47.72 in the final. He was out fast in 22.56, joined under 23 seconds by Matt King (22.91), and stormed home in 25.16 to take the win. King came back in 25.40 to go 48.31, faster than he was in either heats (48.39) or finals (48.41) at U.S. Nationals.

Several World Championship swimmers tried this event on for size tonight, including Luke Hobson (49.64), Hubert Kos (49.42) and Leon Marchand (49.70). Marchand had scratched his events yesterday, but returned to racing with a big schedule tonight. Carson Foster (49.87) and Rex Maurer (49.98) were in tonight’s ‘B’ final, which was won by their compatriot and WUG’s entrant Baylor Nelson in 49.83.

Ruslan Gaziev, who is coming off an 18-month whereabouts suspension, took third in the ‘A’ final in 48.94. He won the event at Canadian Trials this year in 48.37, and holds a best time of 48.27 from 2023. In total, 15 swimmers broke the previous meet record of 50.67 over the course of the day.

Marchand, Kos, Baylor Nelson and Carson Foster completed the same triple as Regan Smith, in what looked to be a punishing Texas schedule for tonight.  A stacked 200 backstroke final saw five World Championship competitors race – Carson Foster, Rex Maurer, Kai van Westering, Hubert Kos and Leon Marchand – with World and Olympic Champion Hubert Kos taking the win in a new meet record of 1:56.74. Marchand pushed him close the whole race to finish in 1:57.14, which looks to be a new best time for him, with no one else breaking two minutes.

With his swim here coming in under the World Aquatics ‘A’ standard of 1:58.07 Marchand now holds World Aquatics ‘A’ cuts in all five 200s. He is the first swimmer since Michael Phelps to even have a personal best under the ‘A’ cuts in all five, and this may well be the first instance of a swimmer swimming under all five in a single qualifying period.

The 200 IM saw the competitors split up, with Foster and Shaine Casas in the ‘B’ final and Kos and Marchand in the ‘A’. Casas took the win ahead of Foster 1:59.71 to 2:00.07, as Foster matched his 200 backstroke time to the hundredth. Marchand and Kos were nearly even at halfway in their final, but Marchand blew Kos away with a 33.90/28.52 back half to roar to a 1:57.23 that shaves 0.04 off his season best and maintains his #8 ranking in the World this season.

Other Results

• David Johnston and Levi Sandidge battled it out in the men’s 800 free, with Johnston taking the win 8:01.34 to 8:06.92. That’s slower for both swimmers than they were at U.S. Nationals, where Johnston was 7:49.85 and Sandidge posted an 8:04.25. Johnston will race the 1500 free for Team USA in Singapore
• Reagan Mattice of Purdue broke 17 minutes in the 1500 for the first time ever, shaving eight seconds off her previous best to go 16:54.31. That gave her the win by nearly ten seconds over her teammate Adele Sands.