Baker comes up clutch in rare second-chance swim at Worlds

Swimming at the world’s highest level rarely offers second chances. So when Kathleen Baker got one at the 2015 World Championships, she took full advantage.

Swimming in the first event of Monday morning, the 18-year-old Baker, one of the youngest members of the U.S. World Championships team, finished a heartbreaking 17th, a single hundredth of a second out of a three-way swim-off for a spot in the semifinals.

The 100 back is Baker’s only event in Kazan besides a potential medley relay appearance, and it looked as though her summer would end in disappointment, eight tenths of a second off her best time and just a hair out of an evening swim.

But fate had other plans for Baker. Top-seeded Katinka Hosszu scratched the event, presumably to be more rested for her 200 IM – an event in which she’d later break a super-suit-era world record. Sweden’s Michelle Coleman also scratched, and suddenly Baker had new life.

Still, moving up from the 15th remaining seed to the top 8 spot needed to advance to the final seemed like a tall order. But Baker came up clutch, blasting a lifetime-best 59.63 in semis, finishing 5th in the faster of the two semis and moving on to the world championship final.

That’s the kind of lightning-in-a-bottle performance Team USA is looking for, as they aim to silence doubters after a disappointing day 1.

Baker now joins Missy Franklin in the championship final, making the U.S. one of just two nations to stack two swimmers into the 100 back A final. Australia will be their chief rivals, with Emily Seebohm sitting first and Madison Wilson third.

Swimming in that championship final should be great experience for Baker, one of the brightest young talents in American swimming at the moment. Baker is now #4 all-time on USA Swimming’s list of 17-18 performers in the event, just behind both 2012 Olympians – Franklin and Rachel Bootsma. 

Baker will follow in the footsteps of both, heading to the California Golden Bears’ storied program for college swimming (that will happen this coming fall, unless Baker elects to defer her college eligibility and keep training in Charlotte with SwimMAC and David Marsh until after the 2016 Olympic Trials). And, with an international final under her belt as of tomorrow night, Baker will enter 2016 as one of Franklin and Bootsma’s chief rivals for a spot on the Rio Olympic roster.