Days before the Westmont Stop of the World Cup gets underway, some athletes were able to step away from the lane lines and onto the hardwood with the NBA’s Chicago Bulls.
Nine of the top swimmers in the world got to spend some time at the six-time NBA champion Chicago Bulls’ practice facility.
The Bulls posted the interaction on Instagram with the caption: “Hosted some world class swimmers from @world_aquatics at the practice facility today ✨”
The “Noteable Nine” include Australia’s Kaylee McKeown and Mollie O’Callaghan, Canada’s Josh Liendo, Italy’s Thomas Ceccon, Switzerland’s Noe Ponti, Great Britain’s Adam Peaty, Hungary’s Hubert Kos, and the United States’ Regan Smith and Kate Douglass spent some time with the organization and infamous Bulls’ mascot, Benny the Bull. All nine of these athletes are committed to swimming the full World Cup circuit. Initially, Summer McIntosh was slated to compete after withdrawing due to illness, with Peaty as her replacement.
The first stop of the World Cup was kind to many of these swimmers; Douglass brought home a trio of wins, slotting her just behind Gretchen Walsh in the World Cup point standings. Smith notched an American Record in the 200 butterfly, and took down McKeown in the 100 backstroke. Kos showed his backstroke dominance, sweeping all three races in Carmel, en route to a World Cup men’s point-topping 58.4 points.
The second stop of the World Aquatics World Cup will kick off on Friday and go through Sunday at the FMC Natatorium in Westmont, Illinois, which sits just 20 miles away from the Bulls training facility.
Two amazing sports teams meet together. We need more of this.
Too bad it couldn’t have been with a good team
Yea too bad they’re in Chicago and hung out with the most iconic basketball franchise of all time. Totally should have drove to Oklahoma.
The Bulls are not the most iconic franchise wtf are you smoking 🤣 the Lakers and Celtics exist bro
Okay but Bulls could make a strong argument for 3rd right? It’s gotta be down to the Bulls and the Warriors, with both teams having to deal with the fact that they had one long, dominant run led by one dominant player, but have been generally really bad outside of that.
“Most iconic basketball franchise of all time” is certainly a take…
I mean everywhere you look across the world many people have Bulls merch it’s one of the most recognizable basketball teams in the world.
Let’s be honest here — a lot of the global popularity of Bulls merchandise has nothing to do with the sport of basketball.
That being said, they’re probably #3 behind Boston and LA. If the Bulls were more iconic than the Celtics, they wouldn’t be worth 1 billion less in a significantly bigger media market.
The Bulls have been mediocre recently, but they’re still top five in terms of tickets, jerseys, and general merchandise. The fact is when people think basketball, a lot of them think Jordan.
As a kid who was in middle school in suburban Chicago in the 1990s, I can pinpoint Name*’s exact age.
Yeah I would guess we’re all around the same age based on that lol. If he said “Most iconic franchise of the 90’s”, there’d be absolutely no argument.
Boston and LA have had multiple eras of greatness whereas the Bulls have been largely irrelevant without Jordan, aside from a few years of Derek Rose’s prime.
Exciting times! I get to watch with my team Saturday morning 🙂
The closest the Bulls will come to gold this season
And this is exactly why I didn’t want to leave the US during this time. Talk about timing