Stanford Edges Cal 14-13 For Most World Championship Medals

2017 FINA WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Stanford narrowly edged California for the most World Championship medals in Budapest, winning 14 total and 12 gold medals.

Stanford easily led the gold medal count, thanks to a stellar combination of Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel, who won 5 golds apiece. Louisville earned 9 golds overall, courtesy of Kelsi Worrell (4) and Mallory Comerford (5).

In terms of individual medals, California led the way with 7 total. That was a true team effort, with Ryan Murphy (2), Kathleen Baker (2), Nathan Adrian (1), Jacob Pebley (1) and Farida Osman (1) all chipping in.

With Tim Phillips earning a relay medal with the American men’s medley, the list has now expanded to 20 NCAA programs. Here’s the full final numbers on teams, athletes, nations and medals:

  • 108 total medals for NCAA athletes or alums
  • won by 49 different swimmers
  • representing 20 different NCAA programs
  • representing 7 different nations

Most Medals By Athlete

Rank Name School Total Gold Silver Bronze
1 Caeleb Dressel Florida 7 7 0 0
2 Katie Ledecky Stanford 6 5 1 0
2 Simone Manuel Stanford 6 5 0 1
4 Mallory Comerford Louisville 5 5 0 0
4 Kelsi Worrell Louisville 5 4 0 1
4 Townley Haas Texas 5 3 1 1
7 Lilly King Indiana 4 4 0 0
7 Nathan Adrian California 4 3 1 0
7 Katinka Hosszu USC 4 2 1 1
7 Matt Grevers Northwestern 4 2 1 1
7 Ryan Murphy California 4 2 1 1
12 Kevin Cordes Arizona 3 2 1 0
12 Blake Pieroni Indiana 3 2 0 1
12 Katie Meili Columbia 3 1 1 1
12 Kathleen Baker California 3 1 1 1
12 Leah Smith Virginia 3 1 1 1

 

NCAA PROGRAM MEDAL TABLES

Note: in compiling these numbers, we’re using the strict definition of “current swimmer or alumnus.” To count towards these numbers, an athlete must have competed for the college program in question. We’re not including commits, nor are we including swimmers who train out of a certain university without directly competing for that college’s NCAA program. So, for example, Bruno Fratus doesn’t count for Auburn (he’s trained there but never competed at the college level), Zane Grothe doesn’t count for Indiana (he trains there now, but swam for Auburn throughout college) and Michael Phelps wouldn’t count for Michigan (anyone remember that? A good illustration of why our definition leaves a lot less weird gray area). In addition, transfers will count for the program for which they are currently competing, or the program with which they finished their collegiate eligibility.

Note #2: We’re also counting total medals, not total event medals (as is typically done in medal counts). So instead of the men’s 4×100 free relay counting as one gold medal (like it would in a traditional medal table), we’re counting each individual swimmer’s college affiliations, if any. So Brazil’s male 4×100 free relay actually counts as two golds for Auburn: one for Cesar Cielo and another for Marcelo Chierighini. And while this could certainly be debated, we’re also counting prelims swimmers. So the U.S. women’s 4×100 free relay counts as three medals for Stanford (Katie LedeckySimone Manuel in the final and Lia Neal in prelims) and two for Louisville (Kelsi Worrell and Mallory Comerford) along with one for Georgia (Olivia Smoliga in prelims).

All that said, think of these lists as a tally of total medals won by all members and alums of each NCAA program.

ALL MEDALS

Total Gold Silver Bronze
Stanford 14 12 1 1
California 13 6 3 4
Louisville 11 9 2
Georgia 11 6 5
Texas 10 4 1 5
Florida 8 7 1
Indiana 8 7 1
Northwestern 5 2 2 1
USC 5 2 1 2
Auburn 5 1 2 2
Arizona 3 2 1
Virginia 3 1 1 1
Columbia 3 1 1 1
Texas A&M 3 1 1 1
Missouri 1 1
Wisconsin 1 1
Duke 1 1
Ohio State 1 1
Arizona State 1 1
Michigan 1 1

Individual Only

Total Gold Silver Bronze
California 7 3 4
Stanford 6 4 1 1
USC 4 2 1 1
Florida 3 3
Northwestern 3 2 1
Texas 3 1 2
Indiana 2 2
Georgia 2 2
Virginia 2 1 1
Columbia 2 1 1
Texas A&M 2 1 1
Duke 1 1
Arizona 1 1
Louisville 1 1

MEDALISTS

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AWSI DOOGER
6 years ago

Strange to see a woman with 5 medals and all of them gold but nothing from an individual event. It looks like Mallory was used in every relay she was eligible for. She did well but I thought Lia Neal could have anchored that medley morning swim today without risk of failing to advance. Mallory was noticeably tired at the wall following the race.

Neal was third in the 100 at Trials but it was a gap back to her 53.59.

Peter L
Reply to  AWSI DOOGER
6 years ago

They could have used Mallory on fly. I suspect she would have been faster than Gibson, hence freeing up Neal for free.

AWSI DOOGER
Reply to  Peter L
6 years ago

That would have been very intriguing but somewhat of a slap to Gibson.

I don’t know what to think about Mallory in fly. She moved her personal best from mid 59s into the high 57s in the world championship trials, barely stopping in the 58s for one race. With Worrell in the same college program for two years seemingly the improvement would have shown sooner.

Just a suggestion
6 years ago

This should probably be split up not just by school, but by combined/non-combined programs as well. Cal, Stanford and Texas are all non-combined, therefore tallying their medals together skews things a bit.

JohnJ
Reply to  Just a suggestion
6 years ago

Agreed.

ct swim fan
6 years ago

I did not know we were keeping track. Point???

karl
6 years ago

We’re going to have to wait for Clark Smith to get it together before Texas can take their proper place.

lilaswimmer
Reply to  karl
6 years ago

if ever.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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