2025 SWIMMING WORLD CUP – CARMEL
- October 10-12, 2025
- Carmel, Indiana
- SCM (25 meters)
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A pair of American swimmers picked up important wins on day 2 of the Swimming World Cup in Carmel as swimmers gear up for the crucial second year of the Olympic quad.
Shaine Casas beat the world’s best male swimmer, Leon Marchand, in the 200 IM, Regan Smith broke a losing streak to Australian Kaylee McKeown in the 100 backstroke final, and Bella Sims showed signs of recovery in her new training at the University of Michigan after a couple of years of tough results at big meets.
Casas swam 1:49.43 in the 200 IM, breaking the American and U.S. Open Records and beating out the World Record holder Leon Marchand of France by three-tenths of a second.
An aggressive Casas took out the race hard ahead of Marchand, and maybe most surprisingly out-split the Frenchman on the breaststroke leg. That leg is both Casas’ weakest stroke and a strength of Marchand, the defending Olympic Champion in the 200 breaststroke.
The swim is .08 seconds better than Casas’ previous best from December’s World Short Course Championships.
Casas and Marchand are now training partners at the University of Texas and are clearly emerging as the world’s two best 200 IMers, separating from the world, under arguably the best men’s 200 IM coach in history Bob Bowman.
Regan Smith, another Bowman trainee in the pro group at Texas, picked up a momentous win in the 100 backstroke in 54.92, winning head-to-head against her Australian rival Kaylee McKeown (55.05).
While neither time was close to either swimmer’s best, it could be an important mental hurdle for the 23-year-old Smith en route to a home Olympic Games.
That was Smith’s first head-to-head win over McKeown in an individual races, short course or long course, since 2019. That streak included silver medals for Smith in both backstroke races at the 2024 World Championships, and in all three backstroke races at the 2025 and 2023 World Championships (though it was Katharine Berkoff who won the 50 back earlier this year in Singapore).
While this race is less significant than all of those, it still could be meaningful for Smith’s confidence. The ability to go faster than McKeown has never been the issue. After all, Smith is the World Record holder in four of the six backstroke races.
It’s winning the individual races when lined up next to McKeown that has been her insurmountable hurdle.
While Smith’s swim on Saturday was nine-tenths slower than her own World Record in the event, and even .65 seconds slower than her World Cup Record from last year’s series, it shows the value of swimming in these meets and getting racing experience against your primary rivals.
The third American to get a potential boost was Bella Sims. Once one of the United States’ top prospects, Sims largely struggled to maintain her trajectory in meters pools while at the University of Florida. Her best finish was 3rd at the 2025 World Championship Trials in the 400 free in 4:07.11, about four seconds slower than her best, and her Olympic Trials meet in 2024 was even worse.
But now training at the University of Michigan, Sims’ first swims of the new season show she might be back on track. Her 3rd place finish in the 100 back in 55.27 is a new lifetime best by half-a-second and moves her to 12th place in the all-time rankings. While her 200 free earlier in the session (1:55.57 for 7th) was not as good, that time on the back-half of a tough double separated by only 14 minutes will build her confidence in her training.
Team USA has hit some rocky roads in recent years, unable to top podiums at the same pace as they used to. But these swims, especially Smith and Casas picking off the undisputed world #1s in those races headed toward Los Angeles, could be the beginning of a turn of momentum for the Americans.
Summer McIntosh’s mindset and the quality of Regan Smith’s underwater skills—we might already be witnessing part of the win-win synergy developing between these two superb swimmers who train together. This is all while waiting for Summer to join the competition soon, swimming up to her potential, or perhaps even excelling more than usual in the underwater phase.
Wait until the “why do foreign swimmers train in USA to beat American swimmers” crew arrive
Nah – there are trolls everywhere.
By the tone and number of the comments, the headline worked. Well done.
Leon also lost to Matt Fallon before Paris and to Shaine before Singapore. 🤷♀️
Think this is the 3rd time he’s defeated Leon in season in the 200 IM?
Leon also lost to Matt Fallon before Paris and to Shaine before Singapore.
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Using some people’s logic, Matt Fallon should beat Leon in Paris.
Also, Summer McIntosh beat Katie Ledecky in 800 free in Southern Sectional, so Summer beat Ledecky in Singapore World Championship, right?
Obviously, this meet is not at the same level as the Olympics or Worlds (and it’s SCM as well). But that doesn’t mean it is entirely irrelevant either. Any win for athletes who have far thus been unable to do so is a success and worth mentioning. And the Olympics are another meet at the end of the day. Who would have picked Dirado to beat Hosszu in the 200 Back? Not I – but it was a thrilling finish!
No one said this meet is irrelevant.
But some people already used day 2 result of SCM swim in October 2025 as evidence that Shaine Casas will beat Marchand and Regan Smith will beat McKeown in 2028 LA.
And it’s not as if Marchand is older than Casas (Marchand is actually 2 years younger than Casas) and Kaylee McKeown is only a year older than Smith.
Also, this is SCM, 2028 London will be swum in LCM.
I don’t think people said they WILL beat them, but the potential is there.
Well, all I can really add to the comments thus far is…..
p=mv.
Even as an Australian I’m Happy for Regan.
This might not be a thing I read much into, but sure. Suppose winning is technically better than losing.
Oh stop it. This is a freakin Oct World Cup in scm. It has no bearing whatsoever to what happens almost 3 years from now in LA
Braden! Did you see this!? Stop covering the sport until summer 2028! George has spoken!
No one said Braden should stop covering swimming until summer 2028.
The OP merely said that a World Cup SCM swim in October 2025 has no bearing to LA 2028 results.
Which is true.
If you don’t believe me, I can show you endless World Cup wins by swimmers who later didn’t win Olympic title.
Let’s revisit this in 3 years when Shaine Casas is an Olympic Champion.
Let’s revisit this in 3 years when Shaine Casas lose to Marchand and Regan Smith lose to Kaylee McKeown.
Talk is cheap.
I don’t think you understand much about swimming if you think tonight’s win isn’t building Casas’ confidence leading to LA. I really don’t think you know what’s going on.
I don’t think you understand much about swimming if you think tonight’s win means Casas beat Marchand and Smith beat McKeown in 2028 LA. I really don’t think you know what’s going on.
The Leon/Shaine and Kaylee/Regan competition are not comparable. Regan was a world record holder when Kaylee first won Gold in a delayed Olympics that clearly benefited Kaylee. What this suggests is that psychology is a huge factor in swimming – as we know. Ledecky beat Titmus in the 400 until she didn’t. Titmus’s first win against Katie in the 400 gave her belief and confidence. Don’t underestimate the power winning and the power of the mind.
Why did it clearly benefit Kaylee? Regan was a World record holder. Kaylee lost her Dad in 2020.
That’s why, Joel. Regan would have likely won hands down in 2020 fresh off of 2019. She wouldn’t have had all the extended psychological pressures of waiting an extra year with sub-optimal training that was less than what she was doing to get the WR. Kaylee, on the other hand, had time to improve enough and to put the tragedy behind her (to the extent possible) as opposed to facing it during the actual Olympics.
Titmus beat Ledecky in high pressure LCM World Championship, the meet that mattered before the Olympics.
Regan beat Kaylee in SCM World Cup.
Anyways I’m not the one who said Leon/Shaine and Kaylee/Regan are comparable.
The article and the title clearly did:
“Big Wins for Smith, Casas Over The World’s Best Could Jump Start American Momentum to LA28”
Titmus also beat Katie at a meet where she was ill. Still, Titmus’s confidence grew. Confidence and belief are very important.
“Regan was a world record holder when Kaylee first won Gold in a delayed Olympics that clearly benefited Kaylee.”
So, Kaylee lost her father few months before Tokyo Olympics, and Kaylee clearly benefited?
What kind of fake news and history revision is this?
Kaylee beat Regan in Tokyo fair and square, do you think losing a father is beneficial?
What kind of person are you?
You have serious reading comprehension problems. Kaylee lost her father in 2020 – the original timeline of the Olympics. Therefore, she would have been disadvantaged in the original Olympics timeline. I hope you’re following now. Focus — and stop insulting simply because you can’t accept that a delayed Olympic timeline benefited Kaylee.
Regan’s posting from her alt account again lol
She has better things to do. I don’t!
I wouldn’t bother interacting with “PassionateSwims”. They’ve only ever commented on 2 articles and both times was just them saying over and over that Regan would have won in Tokyo and attacking Kaylee. They’re clearly not well.
I did not attack Kaylee. Anyway – it is what it is. Covid happened and that’s that.
Go reread the article title and go watch Casas’ reaction after the race and tell me that isn’t a positive building block to LA
So is this comment!
And anything can happen at the Olympics. Anointed champions sometimes finish second. Any win is a good thing.
It’s about building momentum for the American team, especially after the challenges at Worlds.
Both things can be true: a huge step for Regan and not a big deal for Kaylee. We all win when this rivalry intensifies and equalizes.
Any chance SwimSwam can post a YouTube video explaining the Swimming World Cup?
I follow competitive swimming pretty closely, but when it comes to the World Cup I always feel like I’m taking crazy pills. It’s short course meters and there’s a 100 IM except for some years when it’s long course instead. It plays out over multiple meets in multiple cities and countries, and sometimes it’s the same swimmers at those different meets and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes when it moves to a different country there’s way more athletes from that country. What the heck is the qualification process?
They don’t give out medals but there’s a cheesy game show host with a microphone who schmoozes with the… Read more »
Erm….
Your description pretty much covered all the bases for me.
Thanks. 😂
(PS: All I care about is certain races. World Cup? Olympics? SC? LC? OW? Oct? Jul? Whatever!)
And then maybe someone can explain the Aussie time trials. Because damn.
It’s had a lot of forms over the years but current format is 3 stops in 3 different cities but on the same continent.
You get points for your place, and also points for how many FINA points your swim was worth.
You can enter unlimited events but only your top 3 best swims count at each stop.
Each stop rewards money to the top 10 at that stop (winning one individual event essentially gets you nothing), and then the overall top 10 over 3 stops get money.
A lot of swimmers will do all 3 because that’s the only way to make really good money out of it, but a lot will just do 1 or 2
Thank you. My learning curve for this event is very much a work in progress.
For the many athletes of one country, it is usually probably the host country, where the club swimmers from there get to swim it. (maybe to let them gain exposure to the world stage, swim against the best etc.)