U.S. Wins World Aquatics Trophy Again, Lifted by Huge Performance from Women’s Team

2024 SC WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

• December 10-15, 2024
• Duna Arena, Budapest, Hungary
• SCM (25m)
• Meet Central
• Roster Index
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Pick’em
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results
• Prelims Live Recap: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6
• Finals Live Recap: Day 1  | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6
• Complete final results (PDF)

The United States won another FINA/World Aquatics Trophy, which is at least their 11th-straight such title at the World Short Course Swimming Championships dating back to 2004 – the earliest Trophy results SwimSwam has been able to locate.

Carried by the women’s team and their 579 points, more than 250 ahead of the next-best women’s group from Australia, the U.S. scored 1,005 points.

The U.S. had a 306-point margin overall ahead of the next-best group of athletes, which was the Neutral Athletes B team. That group is neutral athletes holding Russian passports. Australia was third, another 100 points behind the Neutral Athletes.

The Neutral Athletes actually outscored the Americans by 7 points; while the U.S. men had some highlights, like the World Records in the 200 free from Luke Hobson and the dominant World Record in the 800 free relay, the back-end of the roster struggled depth-wise, leading to the Russian athletes outscoring them.

The U.S. margin was the biggest since 2018.

Team USA captains Lilly King, Regan Smith, Carson Foster, and Kieran Smith accepted the award on behalf of the American team.

The FINA Points Trophy, as compared to the medals table that the U.S. also won, is considered a better measure of a country’s depth at a meet. For example, Canada, lifted by performances from stars Summer McIntosh and Ilya Kharun, placed 2nd in the medals table both by gold-silver-bronze count and by total medals. Those two were responsible (as solos or on relays) for 10 of the country’s 11 medals. Their smallish roster of 18 athletes, though, only placed 5th in the team trophy.

Historical Margins of Victory for the U.S., World Short Course Swimming Championships

• 2004 – 167 point margin
• 2006 – 168 point margin
• 2008 – 44 point margin
• 2010 – 268 point margin
• 2012 – 406 point margin
• 2014 – 267 point margin
• 2016 – 279 point margin
• 2018 – 310 point margin
• 2021 – 222 point margin*
• 2022 – 234.5 point margin*
• 2024 – 306 point margin

*FINA didn’t release the Trophy standings in 2021 and 2022, so Barry Revzin calculated them. This comes with the caveat that the official Trophy scoring sometimes doesn’t align with our math, and we can’t figure out why.

Trophy Scoring

Teams are awarded points for the finishing placement of each individual and relay.

• Individual Event Places 1 – 16: 18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point
• Relay Places 1 – 8: 36, 32, 30, 28, 26, 24, 22, 20 points.

Full 2024 Trophy Standings