2019 PRO SWIM SERIES – DES MOINES
- March 6th-9th, 2019
- Wellmark YMCA, Des Moines, Iowa
- LCM (50m) pool
- Live Results
- Psych Sheets
- Live Stream – USA Swimming (all prelims sessions, Wednesday & Saturday finals)
- Thursday + Friday live stream NBC Sports
16-year-old Wang Jianjiahe put on a show in the opening event – the women’s 1500 – at the 2019 Pro Swim Series – Des Moines stop, blazing to a 15:46.69. In addition to her significant time drop from her personal best of 15:53.01, Jianjiahe shattered the Chinese and Asian records. Both records were held by Chinese teammate, Li Bingjie, who came in 3rd tonight with a 16:19.71. Binjie held the records at 15:52.87 from the 2017 Chinese Nationals meet.
Jianjiahe is now 2nd in the world this year, only 1 second behind Katie Ledecky, who swam a 15:45.59 at the first stop of the Pro Series in Knoxville in January. This also makes her the fastest junior swimmer (under 18) in the world this year by an absolutely gigantic margin. Another important note, this time is over 6 seconds faster than she went to end last season 3rd in the world. Moreover, she is still a stretch from Ledecky’s World Junior Record, which stands at 15:28.36. Jianjiahe does still have some time to close in on that record, but for right now, she’s still 18.5 seconds off it.
Jianjiahe swam a really consistent race, only floating up to 32 seconds for a 50 split two times during the race. Additionally, her only other splits that weren’t 31-point were the first and last 50s.
Damn fast swim
It would be a lot of objections and historical examples, but it looks that the size matters actually not in sprint only: all Ledecky, Friis, Boyle, Ziegler and Wang are 6′ tall.
It probably helps, but also isnt as important as it is for sprinters; Carlin, Kapas, Li, Adlington, Titmus, Smith etc.
And then there’s Libby Lenton-Trickett, who was the first under 53 in the 100, held the world records in the 50 and 100, and has multiple World and Olympic golds, at the statuesque height of 5’6.
I’m sure you agree that there are biological limits and a swimmer will never swim 100m with the speed of Usain Bolt. It is possible that there is a strong dependency between size of a swimmer and the limits of speed abilities. So 5’6″ tall girl may can break 53 sec barrier in 100m, but I’m sure that we won’t see such a small girl swimming under 52sec.
It was a historical race that was very poorly commented by the announcer. Besides Ledecky only Friis, Boyle and Ziegler were faster. Quite a company
What makes this race different from her other ones was the intensity of the finish: 29.39. She was never that fast at the end of the race, I think. Neither at 800 nor at 400 distances.
By the way, her split at 800 (8:24.36) is pretty strong time by itself in 800 race and is the best one in this season by far.
Sorry, Katie was faster at 800 mark – 8:22.24
I felt the commentation was very poor in general – maybe just my opinion. I do appreciate that he tried to inject some variety in the men’s race by focusing on some of the slower swimmers instead of just rattling on and on about turns like Rowdy Gaines.
Interesting detail: After the race Wang was congratulated by Kristel Kobrich and none of such move was done by Li Bingjie. Both Chinese swimmers stayed on the different sides of their lanes waiting for the end of the race to avoid probably accidental contact.
It looks like a revelry is very strong. Li set three national records in 2017 and was named female Sun Yang. That was the first record she lost to Wang Jianjuahe and i think more is coming.
At 16 Katie Ledecky was 15:36. So jianjiahe is in reasonably close proximity especially if to remember that this result was shown in the beginning of the season and she may wasn’t tapered or somehow specially prepared. On the other hand it was the first ever time when Katie swam this event in international meet and the progress that followed was unprecedented.
Asian swimmers typically aren’t much faster in the summer than at the beginning of the season. It’s not fair to compare anyone with Katie of the same age but Jianjiahe’s time is still impressive.
Typically, yes, but Han Bingyan’s (is she still with him??) athletes tend to be a little more progressive than most in China. I think Wang is breaking the mould.
Is Katie doing another meet somewhere else?