Caeleb Dressel & Sarah Sjostrom Named FINA Swimmers of the World Championships

2019 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS – Swimming

For the 2nd consecutive edition, American swimmer Caeleb Dressel and Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjostrom were named the Swimmers of the Meet at the 2019 FINA World Aquatics Championships. Both swimmers also earned the honor in 2017.

Dressel came away from the meet with 6 gold medals and 2 silver medals, coming off a 7 gold medal performance in Budapest two years ago. Of those medals, all 4 of his individual events (50 fly, 50 free, 100 fly, 100 free) ended in gold. That, combined with individual a World Records in the 100 fly, gives Dressel 22 points.

Meanwhile, Sjostrom won 5 total medals: 1 gold in the 50 fly, silvers in both the 50 free and 100 fly, and bronzes in both the 100 free and 200 free. This brought her up to a tie with Missy Franklin for the most medals in history at the World Championships, and matched Michael Phelps as the most individual medals at a single World Championships. While 2 swimmers (Simone Manuel of the USA and Emma McKeon of Australia) did win more gold medals and total medals, Sjostrom’s were all individual, and individual medals are all that FINA counts for its individual awards.

The FINA Individual Trophy Scoring System:

  • First Place 5 points
  • Second Place 3 points
  • Third Place 2 points
  • Fourth Place 1 point
  • Individual World Record 2 points for each record broken

Regan Smith, the only female to set an individual World Record at the meet, wound up in 7th place, even with only 1 individual event to her name. She won gold in the 200 back final and set a World Record in the 200 back individual semi-final, and broke a 2nd World Record, in the 100 back, leading off the American women’s medley relay. That earned her 9 points.

Men’s Rankings – Top 5

  1. Caeleb Dressel, USA – 22 points
  2. Daiya Seto, Japan – 13 points
  3. Adam Peaty, Great Britain – 12 points
  4. Evgeny Rylov, Russia – 11 points
  5. Sun Yang, China – 10 points

Full Men’s Rankings

Women’s Rankings – Top 6 (including ties)

  1. Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden – 15 points
  2. (TIE) – Yulia Efimova, Russia/Lilly King, USA/Simone Manuel, USA/Ariarne Titmus, Australia/Katinka Hosszu, Hungary – 10 points

Full Women’s Rankings

 

 

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Bobo Gigi
4 years ago

For me it’s Caeleb and Simone.

straightblackline
4 years ago

I would have given it to Regan Smith but the FINA points system is all about quantity rather than quality. The quantity over quality mentality also explains why we have a bloated program with the introduction of the absurd mixed relays.

Swim girl
Reply to  straightblackline
4 years ago

They should introduce a second award for most outstanding swim. The point system is completely fair when determining best swimmer. If you’re medaling in 5 Events, you clearly are deserving of best swimmer of the meet as you’ve mastered multiple events. But an award for most outstanding swim would be fair for Regan Smith to win, absolutely.

Jim C
Reply to  Swim girl
4 years ago

If Regan Smith had been Swedish she would almost certainly been able to compete in all three backstroke events and would very likely won all three, Add in at least one WR and she would have been ahead of Sjostrom, but because she was American she was only able to compete in the 200. That is definitely not completely fair. Swimmers should qualify by meeting the A standard, no matter how many per country–and nobody who does not meet that standard should be allowed to compete. That would be fair–and we would not count relays because we would not have any relays. An athlete’s nationality would be irrelevant, and we would not even keep track of nationalities, or have any… Read more »

Ecoach
4 years ago

Yes unfortunately he couldn’t also swim the freestyle leg.

Philip Johnson
4 years ago

Two individual world records ftw.

Knows Nothing
Reply to  Philip Johnson
4 years ago

She also has st like a WR in the 200 YARD back?

Riez
4 years ago

Imho the point system is not fair. A WR equals to a bronze? Relays and ties are ignored.

Jred
Reply to  Riez
4 years ago

Relays are ignored because it is an individual award.

WR setting swim presumably gets a gold medal also. Plus 2 additional points.

Jim C
Reply to  Jred
4 years ago

Regan Smith got no gold for her 100 WR except a relay gold which does not count. In the 200 she got a WR in the semis and had to still swim for the gold the next day. Now look at the men. If not for Dressel, the award would go to Seto over Peaty. Finishing second by more than 3 seconds gets more points than the extra points for a WR–and that ignores the value of Peaty on the relays.

Steve
4 years ago

Dressel for sure but Sjostrom is a joke.
Hosszu won 200m IM and 400m IM.
Look at the FINA medal table. Sweden is 13-th -:)

Swim girl
Reply to  Steve
4 years ago

How does it matter where SWEDEN is on the medal table when it’s an individual award? It’s not like Sarah can help that she doesn’t have a powerhouse behind her. Did Hosszu medal in 5 individual events? Didn’t think so.

Steve
Reply to  Swim girl
4 years ago

Hosszu won 2 golds, 200m IM and 400m IM, the hardest races. Sjostrom won one gold.

Kristiina
Reply to  Steve
4 years ago

Very correct. Three women won many golds.

Steve
Reply to  Swim girl
4 years ago

Simone Manuel is the clear winner if FINA wanted to go by the medal count.
Something stinks about selecting Sjostrom.

Swim girl
Reply to  Steve
4 years ago

I don’t know why I still get surprised with how little so many of you on here knows. FINA doesn’t select the winner. It’s a point system. FINA literally can’t “cheat” on who wins. 5 individual medals= a fair win for Sarah. Manuel only had 2. Her relay medals counts for nothing here, as they’re not individual medals and it would be extremely unfair to count them for an individual award. You guys need to read up on things before commenting, it’s not that hard.

Jim C
Reply to  Swim girl
4 years ago

If we looked at the FINA medal table for individual athlete’s individual medals we would see that with Hosszu with two gold medal and no lesser medals ranks ahead of Sjostrom with 1 gold, 2 silvers, and 2 bronzes–because the ranking of total medals is based on the number of golds, with lesser medals only used for tie breaking. For both the Olympics and the World Championships being the Olympic or World Champion in two events clearly ranks ahead of being the champion in one, regardless of the number of lesser medals that an athlete gets.

Michael Mooney
4 years ago

Sarah sjostrum? Gotta be kiddin.. Did she win any race? What about. Simone or Regan? Fina has some real issues..Disgusting.

Blackflag82
Reply to  Michael Mooney
4 years ago

um yeah, she did win a race. you should probably look at the results before posting. It’s fascinating to me that in a sport which has high point honors throughout the age group level that people are fine with (most overall points which requires a balance of quantity and quality), they suddenly become upset when that same system continues to be used at higher levels.

Wondering
4 years ago

They don’t get NBC Universal broadcasts in Antarctica?

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Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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