2025 WORLD GAMES – FINSWIMMING
- August 7-12, 2025
- Chengdu, China
- Meet Central
- Results (PDF)
The World Games continue to be a showcase for sports that aren’t contested in the Olympics, and this year’s event once again included what is recognized by many as the fastest sport in the pool.
Finswimming was among the sports contested at the recent 2025 World Games in Chengdu, China, with Ukraine and Hungary coming out as the big winners.
Ukraine won the most medals with 11, while Hungary took home an event-best five gold medals. Hungary had the second-most overall medals with nine.
Finswimming is a sport where athletes use a monofin or bifins to propel them through the water. There are individual and relay events, and the sport consists of four techniques:
- Surface finswimming. Competitors swim on the surface of the water using a mask, snorkel or monofins.
- Apnoea finswimming. Underwater swimming using a mask, monofin or holding one’s breath.
- Immersion finswimming. Underwater swimming using a mask, monofin or underwater breathing apparatus. There aren’t requirements on how an apparatus is carried, but it can’t be exchanged or abandoned during a race.
- Bi-fins. Swimming on the surface of the water with a mask, snorkel or pair of fins using a crawl style.
Former Hungarian Olympian and European champion Szebasztian Szabo was a standout at the competition, winning gold and breaking the world record in the men’s 50-meter bi-fins in a time of 17.96. He was also the silver medalist in the 100-meter bi-fins (40.57).
In the men’s competition, the two individual standouts were Nandor Kiss of Hungary and Max Poschart of Germany. Kiss won gold medals in the 200-meter surface (1:17.71) and 400-meter surface (2:52.68), both in world records.
Poschart won gold in the 100-meter surface (33.81) and silver in the 50-meter apnoea, and was a part of two gold medal-winning relay teams.
Poschart swam leadoff for Germany’s team that won gold in the 4X50 surface relay. Other team members were Niklas LoBner, Justus Morstedt and Marek Leipold.
In the 4×100 meter surface relay, the same quartet swam Germany to gold, although this time Poschart was the anchor.
In the women’s competition, Diana Sliseva of Individual Neutral Athletes, Petra Senanszky of Hungary and Sofiia Hrechko of Ukraine each won two gold medals.
Sliseva won the 50-meter apnoea (15.74) and 100-meter surface (38.62) events, Senanszky took gold in the 50-meter bi-fins (20.59) and the 100-meter bi-fins (45.23), while Hrechko won gold in the 200-meter surface (1:27.90) and 400-meter surface (3:11.88).
Medal Table
| Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total Medals |
| Hungary | 5 | 3 | 1 | 9 |
| Germany | 3 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| Ukraine | 2 | 4 | 5 | 11 |
| Individual Neutral Athletes | 2 | 4 | 6 | |
| China | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| South Korea | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Colombia | 2 | 2 | 4 | |
| Poland | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Chinese Taipei | 1 | 1 | ||
| Egypt | 1 | 1 | ||
| Italy | 1 | 1 |
Szabos record with fins is still more legit than the enhanced record!
The level of ignorance for any kind of sport that Americans doesn’t compete for their own reasons is always over the top..What finswimming has to do with Brett Hawke or the Enhanched games..Of course a sport is not at any kind on the same level as Swimming, but for many years athletes are putting the effort on the sport, and they are trying for the best in a very interesting and dynamic sport..
Off topic the startlist for World Juniors is out.
Where?
Omega Timing.
https://www.omegatiming.com/File/0001190005FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF20.pdf
holy crap chinas sending their a team but Yu Zidi is too young to be eligible. That’s wild.
Notice how they don’t claim to be the “fastest ever” or “setting swimming world records” even though these times are faster than swimming. The Enhanced Games crew could learn a thing or two, but then they wouldn’t be able to sell their testosterone supplments!
Look at what they need to mimic a fraction of our power
If you had done Finswimming you would realize how much power is needed just to get those fins to move/bend or you will look you have a seizure. If you take a beginner monofin they are like swimming with two regular fins taped together. The high-end competition monofins is probably not something you get just to test out as they are $600 (if you are lucky) up to maybe $1200.
I like seeing a recognizable swimmer try this out. Would love to see what other big names could do. Could Leon crush this? Or is it too specialized?
That would be soo cool. Not as cool as adding a 1500 Fly event though
RELEASE THE ceo list. he OR SHE!!! Can bring fins swimming and normal Zwimming back to Life.
Randy
World Games have a reduced line up of events compared to World Championships in Finswimming. World Games features the shorter events and almost none of the underwater events with 6 individual events and 2 relays for both men and women (total of 16 events). At the World Championships there are 32 events plus 3 long distance events (although compared to many years ago, some of the longer/longest events have been removed).
The races with the Monofin are a little faster than the bifin races.
Men’s 100SF – https://youtu.be/3G1cRBXO7vY?feature=shared&t=120
Men’s 4x50SF – https://youtu.be/AFcKDA3blMg?feature=shared&t=123 (New WR)
50m underwater is the fastest race with a World Record of 13.70
Wow, this is pretty wild. Thanks for sharing those links.