The 2023 Mare Nostrum Tour concluded with the final stop over this past weekend. That means we have the complete set of results from the three competitions – Canet, Barcelona and Monaco – in order to determine the overall men’s and women’s winners of the individual points trophy.
As a refresher, swimmers not only won cash for event wins at each of the three stops but their 3 best performances based on World Aquatics points were added up for a final ranking. The top four men and women point earners all took home some dough.
Event Prizes:
- 1st place – €350
- 2nd place – €200
- 3rd place – €100
Best FINA Points Swims of the Series, per gender:
- Best FINA Points swim – €7,000
- 2nd best FINA Points swim – €2,000
- 3rd best FINA Points swim – €1,000
- 4th-best FINA Points swim – €500
For the women, Siobhan Haughey of Hong Kong was crowned the overall Mare Nostrum champion, accumulating 2839 points over the trio of tour stops. Her best performances included the following:
- Canet – 1:55.42 200m free (937 pts)
- Barcelona – 52.50 100m free (955 pts)
- Monaco – 1:55.04 200m free (947 pts)
The next-closest swimmer was South African Lara van Niekerk whose performances reaped 2764 points in all.
Top 4 Women’s Mare Nostrum Trophy Finishers
- Siobhan Haughey (HKG), 2839
- Lara van Niekerk (RSA), 2764
- Ingrid Wilm (CAN), 2760
- Anastasia Gorbenko (ISR), 2717
The men’s side saw Japan’s Ippei Watanabe come out on top with a total of 2770 points. He led a quartet of men all hailing from his nation who finished in the top tier in terms of Mare Nostrum Trophy points.
Watanabe’s best performances included:
- Canet – 2:10.08 200m breast (907 pts)
- Barcelona – 2:08.48 200m breast (942 pts)
- Monaco – 2:09.41 200m breast (921 pts)
Top 4 Men’s Mare Nostrum Trophy Finishers
- Ippei Watanabe (JPN), 2770
- Riku Yamaguchi (JPN), 2678
- Tomoyuki Matsushita (JPN), 2646
- Tomoru Honda (JPN), 2644
Although European swimmers have made a dent in the list of past Mare Nostrum Trophy winners, partly due to their geographic advantage, Asia has had its share of victors.
Haughey joins 2011 winner Shiho Sakai (JPN), 2013 winner Aya Terakawa (JPN) and 2018 Rikako Ikee (JPN) among women’s winners stemming from the Asian continent.
For the men, Watanabe’s trophy follows teammate Ryosuke Irie‘s 2011 win, Yasuhiro Koseki‘s 2014 victory and his own trophy claimed 5 years ago at the 2018 edition.
Let’s play with numbers (or times) to see what time a female swimmer would have to have swum in the 50 free (at only 2 meets) to earn enough points to win the overall title at Mare Nostrum. With the way I interpreted FINA’s explanation (https://www.worldaquatics.com/swimming/points) it would take a 21.06 plus a 21.05 (or vice versa) for 2840 points.
Hail to The Victors! Hail to The Victors!