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Disclaimer: Swim of the Week is not meant to be a conclusive selection of the best overall swim of the week, but rather one Featured Swim to be explored in deeper detail. The Swim of the Week is an opportunity to take a closer look at the context of one of the many fast swims this week, perhaps a swim that slipped through the cracks as others grabbed the headlines, or a race we didn’t get to examine as closely in the flood of weekly meets.
Germany’s Lise Seidel had a pair of breakthrough swims on Friday at the World Championships in Singapore, booking her ticket to Saturday’s final of the women’s 200 backstroke.
The 18-year-old came into the competition owning a best time of 2:10.76, set at the Berlin Open in April, which had her seeded 26th and an unlikely bet to advance to the semis, let alone the final, at her first World Championships.
However, Seidel came through with a strong swim in the prelims, clocking 2:10.00 to qualify 11th overall (moving up to 10th after Katie Shanahan‘s withdrawal), and then she stepped up even more in the semis, dropping all the way down to 2:08.75 to qualify 6th into the final.
Split Comparison
| Seidel, Berlin Open | Seidel, World Prelims | Seidel, World Semis |
| 31.00 | 30.98 | 30.88 |
| 1:04.49 (33.49) | 1:04.08 (33.10) | 1:03.49 (32.61) |
| 1:37.93 (33.44) | 1:37.29 (33.21) | 1:36.50 (33.01) |
| 2:10.76 (32.83) | 2:10.00 (32.71) | 2:08.75 (32.25) |
Seidel is now the third-fastest swimmer in German history, only trailing Lisa Graf (2:07.63) and Jenny Mensing (2:08.30).
Seidel is also the first German woman to contest the 200 back at the World Championships since Graf took 11th in 2017, and she’s the first German to make the final in a decade, with Mensing having placed 5th in 2015.
The 200 back is Seidel’s lone individual entry in Singapore, though she’ll likely be called upon for lead-off duties on the German women’s 4×100 medley relay on Sunday.
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