FINA World Cup Arrives In Singapore, But Possibly Without Hong Kong Team

2019 FINA WORLD CUP #3 – SINGAPORE

  • Thursday, August 15th – Saturday, August 17th
  • OCBC Aquatic Centre, Singapore
  • LCM
  • Entries

We’re entering the final stop of the first cluster of the 2019 FINA World Cup Series, with international athletes descending upon the OCBC Aquatic Centre starting Thursday, August 15th.

Much of the same crowd that’s been at the previous stops of Tokyo and Jinan are arriving in Singapore this week, which means we’ll see a furious points battle play out among the top tier of women’s and men’s World Cup points leader to determine the cluster winners.

For the women right now, Cate Campbell of Australia holds a 3-point advantage over last year’s women’s winner Katinka Hosszu of Hungary. C1 carries 105 points into this week to Hosszu’s 102. The next closest competitor in the standings is fellow Aussie Emily Seebohm, who holds 63 points after 2 stops.

Vlad Morozov is looking to earn his 2nd consecutive World Cup overall title, leading the men’s field by 9 points with a total of 96 entering this Singapore stop. Behind him is American Andrew Wilson who holds 87 points, while Aussie Mitch Larkin is still in the mix with 72 points through Jinan.

Most of the nations’ lineups for Singapore remain the same as in the past, although China’s is significantly reduced for this non-home-nation stop.

Also, Hong Kong was slated to compete in Singapore, but the squad reportedly ran into travel issues due to demonstrator protests at the Hong Kong International Airport. They may wind up scrapping their trip altogether if plans can’t come together, which means swimmers will miss out on this Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifying meet. (SCMP)

For the United States, Breeja Larson and Jonathan Tybur enter the picture, with both swimmers taking on the 50m, 100m, and 200m breaststroke events.

For Larson, the former Texas A&M racer currently ranks 3rd in the United States in the women’s 100m breaststroke, holding a season-best time of 1:06.78. She sits 11th among Americans in the 200m breast in 2:27.16 from this summer’s U.S. Nationals.

Tybur, also a Texas A&M alum, recently competed at the World University Games (Summer Universiade) in Naples, Italy. He finished 7th in the 200m breast in a time of 2:13.68, well off his personal best of 2:10.55 logged at the 2018 U.S. Summer Nationals. He’ll need to get into the 59-mid-range in the 100m breast and 2:09-low range in the 200m breast if he wants to add his name to the National Team roster.

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MKW
4 years ago

Have to give the Iron Lady credit for racing at seemingly every chance she can, just a machine. Interested to see if she pares down her event lineup for Tokyo, it looks like she slowly has started to ….I think she only swims both IMs and 2back, the 100 back and 200 free dont work as well with her schedule and also will be tough to podium. The other option, 2 fly semi is right before 2 IM final. Defending the IMs will be the priority.

Octopus
Reply to  MKW
4 years ago

The Entry Book is very misleading, there is Hosszu with 14 entries, and C1 with 3 entries. The actual startlist which came later is quite different

Teddy
4 years ago

Schooling wishing he had the same excuse

13 % Chinese person
4 years ago

Travellers should just boink the occupiers on the head with their approved cabin luggage .

Yozhik
4 years ago

One person who wasn’t probably excited with Regan Smith outstanding performance at last World Championships is Katinka Hosszu. R. Smith moved world records in backstroke events so much ahead that scoring a decent FINA points in these events becomes very difficult task starting next year.
Look what standards she is facing in the events she used to compete mostly:
400IM – 4:26
200IM – 2:06
200BK – 2:03
100BK – 57.5
200BU – 4:01
200FR – 1:52.9

Probably the best chances to score high in terms of FINA points is 200IM, but the competition in this event is rising. Last season she lost there to Sarah Sjostrom in SC pool.

Octopus
Reply to  Yozhik
4 years ago

Hosszu lost 100 IM, 200 is still her territory, though Tokyo with Ohashi was quite close

IM FAN
Reply to  Yozhik
4 years ago

Your problem shouldn’t be with Regan, it should be with the FINA point system that views all WRs as equal and then judges swims based on said WRs.

The logical alternative is to just drop the FINA point system. It’s just ridiculous to try and compare completely different swims by using the WRs. If you have to compare swims using some arbitrary method I think maybe using where the swim falls all time in that events rankings instead, that way when you have an event like the 100 breast when peaty owns it it dosen’t punish swimmers for going a high 58z which is a really good swim and just looks slow next to peaty…

torchbearer
Reply to  IM FAN
4 years ago

Or at least have the FINA Points ranked off the best textile WR?

Good but not Great
Reply to  torchbearer
4 years ago

Well in the context of Yozhik’s comment about Hosszu being screwed by FINA points the only rubber suit record is the 200 free. Honestly there are more ridiculous textile records then there are rubber ones at this point.

Spectatorn
Reply to  Yozhik
4 years ago

probably more so is Emily Seebohm in regard to the WR in women backstroke. Seebohm holds the WC records, raced both events in both stops, won 3 gold and 1 silver but she has no chance in getting high point award. The same probably true for winners of men’s 100m and 200m butterfly

Octopus
4 years ago

Should not be right after Worlds or should not be called called WC, IMHO. We see a C1 vs Hosszu duel, who wins more in thin field. The European leg must be better, but then we cannot expect much from the third cluster either (last year’s Doha was disastrous). Sorry to be negative.

DLSwim
Reply to  Octopus
4 years ago

Why not right after Worlds? It seems like a good thing to do since the best swimmers were in South Korea to start with. This event is geared towards professional athletes, so I don’t see the problem.

Texas Tap Water
Reply to  Octopus
4 years ago

Why should it not be right after worlds? When should they be?

In previous installments, world cup right after world attracted top swimmers who didn’t usually swim world cup and so many records were broken since the top swimmers were still in top condition.

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Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having just earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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