Down to the Wire for Men’s and Women’s Titles at 2024 Swimming World Cup Series

The third-and-final stop of the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup kicks off on Thursday in Singapore (Wednesday evening in the Western Hemisphere time zones), and while there are more meet prizes on the line, most significantly the results will determine the winners of the series-long prizes, which is where the bulk of the $1 million+ in series prize money this year is dedicated.

• See the prize money after stop 2 here.

Both the men’s and the women’s battle will come down to the final races. There are big swings between prize winners at the top of the table, with the winner taking $100,000 and runner-up being relegated to $70,000.

Women’s Standings

The women’s battle is, essentially, a two-swimmer race, both Americans, headed into Shanghai.

Regan Smith beat-out her countrymate and frequent social media collaborator Kate Douglass by two-tenths of a point in Incheon to take the overall series lead.

If Smith wins, it might be for a crucial strategy error for Douglass in Incheon. While Douglass maximized her “event win” points, a good swim in her final entry of the meet, the 200 IM, could have lifted her time points.

Theoretically, if Douglass had decided to swim the 200 IM in Incheon, she still would’ve needed to be significantly faster than she was in the event in Shanghai to beat Smith at that stop. In order to beat Smith outright for the title, Douglass would have had to have posted a time of 2:02.64 based on her other point totals, but she was only 2:04.09 in Shanghai. With Douglass’ best time standing at a 2:02.12, she might have had a chance, especially after breaking the 200 breaststroke World Record earlier in the meet, demonstrating her form.

But the difference in the overall standings would have taken only a 2:03.10 to close and put the two into a dead-heat headed toward Singapore.

The World Aquatics points system, which is scaled based on the World Record, is only updated once a year. That means that Smith can be slower than her new World Record in the 100 back, and Douglass slower than her new World Record in the 200 breast, and still score over 20 points in those events in Singapore.

Douglass has not yet been able to perform at a super-high level in the 200 breast and 100 IM on the same day, so one strategy to capture the $100,000 top prize could be to drop one of those races, and swim the (100 IM/200 breast), 50 fly, and 200 IM, all of which should be comfortable results – and if she performs to her potential in all three, she probably has about a 59.5 point day.

That would be hard for Smith to match, but Smith has a big opportunity to improve as well: if she drops the 200 fly on the meet’s first day and focuses solely on the 50 back, she could pick up another few tenths in that race and lock away the series title.

Spoiler Alert

The women’s battle could be significantly impacted by the presence of two new Americans to the series: Claire Weinstein and Katie Grimes.

Weinstein doesn’t have any important overlap with Smith and Douglass, but Grimes does in the 100 IM, the 100 back, and 200 back. We don’t know for sure which of her six entries Grimes will swim (probably not all of them), and she wouldn’t be a favorite over Smith or Douglass in any of those races, but there’s an outside chance of her pulling off an upset and upsetting the apple cart spelled out above.

Men’s Standings

Each of the top three in the men’s race for $100,000 scored fewer points in Incheon than they did in Singapore: Leon Marchand, Noe Ponti, and Qin Haiyang.

Marchand has swept the IM races so far in the series, though Ponti tied him at 51.00 at the last stop in Incheon – a hundredth of a second that could be the difference in the final standings. Had Ponti won that race, he would have a 2.6 point lead over Marchand rather than being in a 1.4 point deficit.

If Marchand wins, he would be the first Frenchman to win an overall World Cup title.

Qin Haiyang would need a heroic effort, plus an unlikely stumble by Marchand, to get back into the overall battle – Qin faces the stiffest competition of the three in his breaststroke events thanks to the presence of Ilya Shymanovic and Josh Yong, both of whom have picked up wins so far in the series.

South African Pieter Coetze actually has more wins than Qin, but that’s owed mostly to limited competition in his specialty backstroke events. His lower “time score” points have him in 4th, though if Qin can’t get a breaststroke sweep in Singapore, he is vulnerable to being jumped by another Coetze triple.

The top five, with Duncan Scott 1.2 behind Coetze, are pretty-well clear of the field and locked in, barring disaster. Scott only has three wins in the series but has maintained contact with the leaders none-the-less thanks to fast times for runner-up positions.

How does the prize money and scoring work?

Courtesy: Sophie Kaufman

Scoring System

Like previous years, points are awarded from the finish order and how fast the swim is based on the AQUA Power Points system.

Points are awarded for speed by taking the number of AQUA Power Points a swim is worth, dividing by ten, and rounding down to the nearest tenth.

Prize Money

Swimmers can race as many events as they want at each stop, but only their three best scores from a stop will be added together to determine their score for the stop. At each stop, there is a total of $112,000 (USD) on offer for each gender or $672,000 for the whole series. This is the same amount as was available in 2023 and 2022.

Prize money for rankings at each stop is given through the top 20 positions with men and women scored separately. If there is a tie, the swimmer with the higher AQUA Power Points in their best event during the stop wins.

Prize Money for Each Stop: 

There is also prize money for the top eight swimmers per gender at the end of the entire series. The winner of the men’s and women’s standings will each earn $100,000. A total of $262,000 will be awarded across the top eight swimmers per gender at the end of the series. Again, this is the same amount of money that was on offer in 2023.

Prize Money for Overall Series Ranking: 

Total Guaranteed Prize Money To Be Awarded

• Shanghai – $224,000 ($112,00 per gender)
• Incheon – $224,000 ($112,00 per gender)
• Singapore – $224,000 ($112,00 per gender)
• Overall Series Rankings – $524,000 ($262,000 per gender)
• Total – $1,196,000

Additional Prize Money

In addition to the guaranteed prize money from rankings at the end of each stop and the end of the series, swimmers can earn money by breaking a world record or completing a Triple Crown—winning the same event at all three stops.

Swimmers can pick up $10,000 USD for each world record and $10,000 for each Triple Crown. Last year, Kaylee McKeown broke two world records at the World Cup series, swimming 26.86 in the 50 backstroke and a 57.33 100 backstroke at the Budapest stop. There were 20 Triple Crowns won in 2023; 12 were won by women as every women’s freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly events were Triple Crowns.

2023 Swimming World Cup Triple Crowns

Women:

• 50 freestyle — Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden
• 100 freestyle — Siobhan Haughey, Hong Kong
• 200 freestyle — Siobhan Haughey, Hong Kong
• 400 freestyle — Erika Fairweather, New Zealand
• 800/1500 freestyle — Lani Pallister, Australia
• 50 backstroke — Kaylee McKeown, Australia
• 100 backstroke — Kaylee McKeown, Australia
• 200 backstroke — Kaylee McKeown, Australia
• 200 breaststroke — Tes Schouten, Netherlands
• 50 butterfly — Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden
• 100 butterfly — Zhang Yufei, China
• 200 butterfly — Zhang Yufei, China

Men:

• 100 freestyle — Thomas Ceccon, Italy
• 50 backstroke — Michael Andrew, United States
• 100 backstroke — Thomas Ceccon, Italy
• 50 breaststroke — Qin Haiyang, China
• 100 breaststroke — Qin Haiyang, China
• 200 breaststroke — Qin Haiyang, China
• 200 butterfly — Matthew Sates, South Africa
• 200 IM — Matthew Sates, South Africa

2023 Results

McKeown and Qin Haiyang followed up their exploits at the 2023 World Championships, where they became the first swimmers to sweep 50/100/200 of a stroke at a World Championships by winning the 2023 Swimming World Cup.

McKeown claimed the women’s trophy win 177.4 points ahead of Siobhan Haughey (166.4) and Zhang Yufei (166.2). Over the three stops of the 2023 World Cup, McKeown earned three backstroke Triple Crowns, broke two world records, and lowered the backstroke World Cup records each time she swam.

Qin won the men’s table with 175.4 points, with Thomas Ceccon (167.9) and Matthew Sates (166.8) finishing second and third. Qin earned three breaststroke Triple Crowns, setting World Cup records in the 50 and 200 breast at the first stop of the series in Berlin.

While not always the case, in 2023 the World Cup overall winners also earned the most prize money throughout the series. Qin earned $166,000 while McKeown topped all swimmers with $186,000.