2025 World Championships
- July 27 – August 3, 2025 (pool swimming)
- Singapore, Singapore
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Yesterday, we saw Leon Marchand drop a *disgusting* 1:52.69, shattering Ryan Lochte’s 14-year-old record of 1:54.00. Today, we saw Summer McIntosh drop a 2:01.99 200 fly, the 2nd fastest performance of all-time and just .18 off of the 2009 super-suited world record. Gold Medal Mel made the assertion that Summer’s swim was more impressive than Leon’s… what do you think?
Only one WR in this can be convo, so….
The way I look at the goat of our sport couldn’t beat this record in his prime and Marchand just absolutely obliterated it. Meanwhile summer just got very close to breaking one of the strongest world records. It’s not comparable one just obliterated a record that not even Michael Phelps could beat and the other became the second fastest woman ever. One is uncharted territory and one is an impressive national record.
Summer. That WR is sus af, as the kids say. In my mind, she’s 2 seconds faster than the next best we’ve seen.
The fact that a world record is being compared to an “almost” swim is insane meatriding. Haven’t seen this kind of glaze since Cris Collinsworth and Patrick Mahomes II
I don;t think it’s glaze…it has merit…the fly record was super suited and very suspicious at the time since that swimmer never repeated. This is not to take anything away from Marchand’s amazing swim…
What kind of question is this lol it’s Marchand.
Marchand by far
Summer. People here are biased because they had higher expectations for her, as she already dropped a lot of time a month ago. This leads to a recency bias. The women’s 200 m freestyle world record is by far one of the top 3 most difficult WR to beat across both men’s and women’s events, whereas the 200 m IM record wasn’t. Shaine Casas legit went 1:54.3, and swimmers are therefore going to get closer and closer to Marchand’s WR. Meanwhile, Summer’s time? No one is getting close to it anytime soon, except for her
You are assuming a recency bias as the only explanation for people not agreeing with you. Sounds like Bulverism to me. I think breaking a 14 year old record by so much in a 200m race is more impressive than getting way closer than anyone else but not breaking it. Nothing to do with the leadup or expectations.
Clearly Leon’s 200 IM is superior to Summer’s 200 IM for the simple reason that he broke a WR and she did not. Otherwise if you choose Summer over Leon you are saying that the 200 IM record was not as difficult to break as the 200 Fly. And the argument that Summer saw more events prior to her 200 Fly is irrelevant…that was her choice!!
This.
Well, yes, the 200 m IM record was not as difficult to break as the 200 m butterfly. Prior to Marchand’s WR, the mark stood at 1:54.00, and now Casas is only 0.3 seconds away. In contrast, for the women’s 200 m butterfly, no one other than Summer is even within 2–3 seconds of the record; she is now just 0.18 seconds off. That world record has stood for 16 years, which shows just how hard it is to beat and how insane her time is.