Missy Franklin Headed For Singapore Stop of FINA World Cup

The star-studded cast of the upcoming cluster of World Cup events keeps gaining high-profile status, as yet more athletes have been announced for the Singapore stop of the three-city tour.  The second cluster of the 2015 FINA World Cup is set to begin on September 25th in Hong Kong and includes additional stops in Beijing (September 29th-30th) and Singapore (October 3rd-4th).  

Just last week we learned that 2015 World Champions Emily Seebohm and Bronte Campbell, both from Australia, have been confirmed as swimming in Singapore.  Now, Franklin’s camp has confirmed that she also plans to participate in the Singapore stop of the World Cup series in early October.

Franklin is coming off a world championships performance lacking in the fireworks typically seen by the 20-year old.  We’re used to seeing Franklin trounce the competition across multiple events, but she stood on the podium just twice in Kazan in terms of individual events, earning bronze in the 200m freestyle and silver in the 200m backstroke. Franklin also scored finals in the 100m backstroke and 100m freestyle, where she finished 5th and 7th, respectively.

One of Franklin’s chief rivals in those backstroke races besides Seebohm is Hungary’s powerhouse, Katinka Hosszu. Hosszu is a mainstay on the World Cup circuit and this round seems no different, with the “Iron Lady” registered for Singapore as well.  That means we’ll most likely see a repeat of the Franklin-Hosszu-Seebohm showdown in the 200m backstroke event, with Franklin and Hosszu also going to battle in the 200m freestyle as well.

As the World Cup has typically been held in short course (25m), the entire eight-legged series is now formatted in long course (50m) as athletes are attempting to score their Olympic qualifying times with less than a year to go until 2016 Rio.