2024 WORLD AQUATIC CHAMPIONSHIPS
- February 11th – February 18th
- Doha, Qatar
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- SwimSwam Preview Index
- Official Entries
- Live Results (Omega)
Day one of the 2024 World Aquatics Championships brought the heat, despite this year’s edition missing a good amount of the world’s best swimmers.
We saw China’s Pan Zhanle fire off a new World Record in the men’s 100m free (46.80) as lead-off on China’s men’s 4x100m free relay, while New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather scored the first-ever women’s World Championships gold for her nation when she topped the women’s 400m free podium.
Before these achievements, however, Poland’s Krzysztof Chmielewski put up a solid prelims swim of 3:48.71 in the men’s 400m freestyle in a swim that may have gone unnoticed.
Chmielewski placed 19th overall, well out of the final; however, his outing this morning checked in as a new lifetime best. Entering this competition, the Pole’s career-quickest rested at the 3:49.34 clocked at the 2022 World Junior Championships, good enough for bronze in the event.
The 19-year-old’s opening performance here in Doha signifies two things for us: 1) he has flourished during his time as a USC Trojan and 2) he looks to be in form to do damage in the 200m fly later on in this competition.
As a Trojan, Chmielewski took PAC-12 male swimmer of the week honors last month as a result of his performances against UC San Diego. At that NCAA competition, he won 3 individual events and one relay to make his mark in the dual.
Looking ahead to the 200m fly which begins here on Tuesday, February 13th, Chmielewski is the SwimSwam pick for gold.
He earned silver in the event last year in Fukuoka but has yet to race the event long course this season. He’ll battle against the likes of Japanese Olympic silver medalist Tomoru Honda, Italy’s Alberto Razzetti and more as he tries to build momentum off of his first-event PB from today.
I’d like to nominate another swim you might have missed: Finlay Knox of Canada is now faster than Liendo and Kharun in the 50 Fly, beating their co-national record. He also split a 47.9 in the relay. And normally only swims the 200 IM at big meets!