During the Short Course World Championships in Budapest, the Polish Swimming Federation held a press conference to hand out the upcoming 2025 Short Course European Championships in Poland. Among the attendees there were Olympic and World multi-medalists Otylia Jedrzejczak (Poland) and Laszlo Cseh (Hungary).
The Evolution of the Individual Medley
Given the many highlights on the first day of competition in Budapest, including an exciting 200m individual medley final, which saw Shaine Casas going under Ryan Lochte’s American record, we asked Laszlo what he thought about the performances and the evolution of the IM events. His response could be summed up with the sentence, “Once upon a time, there were there were back-fly-free specialists and then breastroker.”
Especially nowadays, with the rise of Leon Marchand, who is as much a flyer as a breaststroker, and also considering yesterday’s podium, which featured three swimmers—Shaine Casas, Alberto Razzetti, and Finlay Knox—who all swim an excellent third 50m, the Hungarian champion wondered what has changed now compared to 5 or 10 years ago. The answer he gave himself (and us) lies in the fact that, in back at his day, the two class of swimmers— fly-back-freestylers and breaststrokers—didn’t overlap. Those who swam the 200m/400m IM were often the same swimmers who belonged to one class or the other . There were almost no medley specialists who were also strong breaststroke swimmers, and if there were, it wasn’t the normality at the time. Now, however, one has to be an excellent swimmer in all four strokes, with no exceptions.
” You have no chance with a bad breastroke.”
World Records on the First Day of Racing
“If someone sets a record today, it doesn’t mean that someone else won’t break it tomorrow,” this is how the Hungarian legend introduces the talk about world records set on the first day at the Duna Arena. Laszlo Cseh, who emphasizes that he doesn’t have favorite swimmers but simply enjoys a good race, stated that the performances he liked most on the record-breaking Tuesday (when 7 world records were broken) were in the 50m butterfly. The former Hungarian swimmer pointed out how amazed he was by the ease with which Gretchen Walsh and Noe Ponti have been lowering the limits of the sport. “In the 50m, it’s very difficult to set personal records because the distances are so short, especially in short course, that the margin for improvement becomes smaller and smaller.” It’s a bit like the story of Achilles, who will always get closer to the tortoise, but it happens asymptotically: the shorter the distance, the smaller the gains with each attempt. Therefore, Laszlo finds it incredible to see improvements of nearly 0.4 seconds in the 50m butterfly. “In the end, it’s just a dive and a few strokes.”
My best 200 IM splits yards were 24.5 28 37 27
Laszlo Cseh more like Laszlo Csehveral rounds of beer
Summer Mcintosh says hello
Errr she’s not Kate Douglass but she’s not exactly bad
Glad to see Laszlo looking a little heavy. Getting that goulash in retirement! Good on him.
Not that I disagree at the top level with his thoughts on the IM. It just sparks my wondering about what top breaststroke swimmers worst stroke is. I have a hypothesis it’s backstroke based purely on anecdotal observations from when I was a competitive swimmer back in the mid 80’s to late 90’s. Now you have Kate Douglass as the one that jumps out to me in that camp. I think backstroke is also the weakest of the 4 for Alex Walsh and even Chase Kalisz who are generally in the “no weak stroke” category. Lilly King swims IMs semi frequently and her backstroke looks to be her weakest as well. Breaststroke is still the odd stroke out of the… Read more »
Alex Walsh’s worst stroke in the IM is probably fly or free – she was 2:08 LCM in the 2back
I don’t think she has a weak stroke. I mean, she’s #2 all time in the 2 fly and 2 breast in SCY, set multiple NAGs in backstroke while growing up, which leaves frees – and calling someone who splits 20.8/46.5/1:41.2 bad at free is kinda funny
Let me help with that. When I was swimming my group had 6 breastrokers. We all sucked at backstroke. ALL OF US. Like in the 2IM we fall behind on the 2nd lack and play catch up on the 3rd lap. We, all of us, have a strong fly though
I’m going to disagree. At the pro and even college level, you could never get away with a bad breaststroke leg. It doesn’t have to be stellar, but it can’t be bad. You can have a bad breaststroke leg in high school, but certainly not at the pro level. Not today and not before. That hasn’t changed.
I think he considers his own breaststroke bad, and he is triple Olympic medalist in the IMs.
Love lazlo. Probably one of the top 10 all time for men in terms of ability and longevity in the sport.
There are two kinds of ex-athletes:
a) “we were much better/tougher, and had to deal with [challenges]; the kids today don’t compare”
b) “the kids today are much better/more capable, they would blow us out of the water”
Neither is quite true (a younger version of Cseh would still be extremely competitive today), but I’ve always thought of Cseh as very classy, and am not surprised to see him in the second category.
His best times in the IMs would have gotten him double silver in Paris and his 200 fly would have been good for bronze.