Forged in the Embers: What Did the 2024 Worlds Performance Mean for Team USA?

2024 WORLD AQUATIC CHAMPIONSHIPS

• February 11th – February 18th, 2024
• Doha, Qatar
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• Day 1 Prelims Recap | Day 1 Finals Recap
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• Day 4 Prelims Recap | Day 4 Finals Recap
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• Day 6 Prelims Recap | Day 6 Finals Recap
• Day 7 Prelims Recap | Day 7 Finals Recap
• Day 8 Prelims Recap | Day 8 Finals Recap

After the 2023 calamity that saw Team USA miss the top of the medals table at the World Championships for the first time since 2001, 2024 was a bounce-back year for the Americans.

They won 8 gold medals among 20 total, even with an abbreviated team, placing them ahead of China (7/11) and Australia (3/16) for both most gold medals and most total medals.

The meet didn’t mean everything to everyone. Australia’s momentum toward Paris certainly wasn’t harmed by the fact that the Dutch women beat their 400 free relay (when the Australians had to use a breaststroker on their third leg).

But for the swimmers who had something to prove, it meant a lot. And for Team USA, there are a lot of swimmers with a lot of things to prove in 2024.

Kate Douglass proved that she is a bona fide international, long course star by setting the American Record in the 50 free (23.91), winning the 200 IM in a personal best (2:07.05), and taking silver in the 200 breast (2:20.91). We know Douglass can swim fast anytime, anywhere, but she is still doubted globally as a “jack of all trades, master of none.”

Two straight World titles in the 200 IM seems to belie that sentiment, though the first half is increasingly true. She became just the second American woman in history to win individual medals in three different disciplines at the World Championships (after the indomitable Tracy Caulkins in 1978).

She also continued to bring a stabilizing force to the American relays. While the women didn’t race most of their relays, she was very fast in the mixed events, and should give the US some confidence heading into the Paris Olympics. They’re still not Australia, but they’ve got at least one reliable part to build around who has been good now for two straight meets.

Her partner in those events was Claire Curzan, who had a massive bounce-back after an ER visit kept her out of the 2023 World Championships. She swept the 50-100-200 backstrokes, won silver in the 100 fly, and also picked up a pair of relay medals.

With lots of chatter about whether the 19-year-old’s career had peaked, she declared affirmatively, as the Swimmer of the Meet and the top money earner, that it had not. Her schedule may have been too big, so she’ll have to choose wisely in June at the Olympic Trials, but her times were good. Her 58.29 in the 100 back would have missed the podium at last year’s Worlds by .04 seconds. Her 2:05.77 in the 200 back would have won bronze.

At a minimum, she keeps the pressure on American backstrokers Katharine Berkoff and Regan Smith and American butterfliers Torri Huske and Gretchen Walsh. Getting her on the Olympic team is crucial for the American – like Douglass, she gives them a ton of flexibility as the meet wares on to choose the hot-hands for relays, which is more important now than maybe ever for Team USA.

They anchored the mixed medley in splits of 56.54 (fly – Curzan) and 52.34 (free – Douglass), and that mixed medley, even with no Ryan Murphy, was about as fast as the one they swam at Worlds last year.

The leadoff leg of that relay was Hunter Armstrong, who split 53.07 there and also won the 100 individually in 52.68. That time was only a tenth shy of what he went for bronze at last year’s World Championships.

For an American men’s team that needs any good news, his continued progression was some good news.

30-year-old Nic Fink, meanwhile, continues to hold on to his late-breaking peak form. Right now, he looks like the single most-important lynchpin for Team USA, as Michael Andrew’s continued struggles doesn’t leave a lot of depth in the breaststroke events for the Americans.

Carson Foster, who faces the juggernaut that is Leon Marchand in Paris, had a mixed bag of results. There are two ways we can choose to remember his meet: getting run-down by Finlay Knox of Canada in the 200 IM, a race Foster should have won, and finishing 4th in the 400 IM, or his relay splits of 47.83 and 1:43.94 in the 100 and 200 freestyle respectively.

We know Foster is faster than a 4:12 in the 400 IM – and the fact that he can split 1:43.94 in the 200 free while so far off his best in the IM races is a mind-melt.

There were some unexpected swims too, like Rachel Klinker going 2:07.70 in the semi-finals of the 200 fly to add one more name to an increasingly-deep domestic field in that event; Piper Enge made a final in the 50 breaststroke in her first big senior international meet;

It wasn’t a perfect meet for the Americans. Michael Andrew only winning one medal (50 fly silver) in four shots is less than hoped. Shaine Casas did not exude confidence in what he has to offer this summer. A big women’s 400 medley relay streak came to an end (they had won four straight).

But there was a lot more positive than negative out of the Americans in the results. It feels like it’s been a while since we could say that about Team USA coming out of a major international competition, and that sort of trend can weigh on the collective psyche of a ‘team’ – especially one that just watched the country’s most reliable performer Katie Ledecky lose in the 800 free for the first time in 13 years.

Did these World Championships matter? I think coming out of the meet, the energy in the swimming community is that they mattered less than other World Championships with more complete fields, but that the lack of some stars and superstars didn’t completely negate their significance.

And maybe that’s what Team USA needed. A medium-pressure event to pick up some medals, grab some best times, and build some confidence heading toward Paris. Not a legacy ‘forged in fire,’ but instead one forged in the smoldering coals, the embers, waiting for some tinder to reignite the flames. That’s what this small squad has given to their teammates – a break in the narrative of a Team USA doom-spiral, a reason to be positive and optimistic, and something to feel good about ahead of this summer’s much bigger festivities.