Disclaimer: Blueseventy 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 blueSeventy Swim 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.
Stop 1 of the 2018 World Cup featured a clash between two of the best versatile sprint types in the world.
American 19-year-old Michael Andrew has made clear his goal to be the fastest in the world at the 50s of all four strokes. But Russia’s Vladimir Morozov could certainly make a similar charge. The two battled head-to-head four times in Moscow, splitting their head-to-heads but with Morozov ultimately taking three golds to Andrew’s one.
Morozov won the 50 free (21.49 to 21.99) and 50 back (24.43 to 24.49) over Andrew, and also won the 100 free (48.26) in a race without Andrew. Andrew won the 100 fly (51.96) without a Morozov entry. Head-to-head, Andrew beat Morozov in the 50 fly (23.19 to 23.38) and 100 back (54.36 to 55.08), though the men took silver and bronze in both, behind Andrii Govorov and Mitch Larkin, respectively.
Morozov had a busy weekend, taking silvers as part of two Russian mixed relays. Andrew, meanwhile, added a bronze in the 50 breast.
Morozov wasn’t far off his best times from the 2017-2018 season – he was just two tenths off in his 50 back and five one-hundredths in his 50 free. His continued speed means Russia’s men’s relays should be absolutely stacked in 2019, featuring young world champs in back (Kliment Kolesnikov) and breast (Anton Chupkov) with the relay hero Morozov on the end. Russia’s men’s 4×100 free relay won Euros gold, and should be among the best relays heading into the 2019 World Championships.
Certainly there’s no discussion of ‘fastest man alive’ without mentioning Caeleb Dressel, the 2017 World Champ in the 50 free and 4th-place finisher in the 50 fly. Dressel is coming off a rough summer brought on in large part by a motorcycle accident, and didn’t compete in Moscow. While Dressel will certainly be in the mix in at least two of the stroke 50s, Morozov’s strong World Cup showing gives him the early lead over Andrew in the race to dominate the most 50s for 2018-2019.
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small corrections – the meet was in Kazan not Moscow and Dressel did not win the 50 fly at Worlds (4th place).