2020 INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING LEAGUE – MATCH 6
- Sunday, November 1st: 6-8pm CET/11-1pm U.S. Central
- Monday, November 2nd: 4-6pm CET/9-11am U.S. Central
- Duna Arena – Budapest, Hungary
- Short Course Meters (SCM) format
- ISL Technical Handbook
- 2020 ISL Scoring Format
- 2020 ISL Prize Money and Bonuses
- How To Watch
- Omega Results
- Start Lists Day 1
- Teams: Energy Standard/Aqua Centurions/New York Breakers/Toronto Titans
The Toronto Titans and Energy Standard have made the predictable choices for the skins races in Match #6 of the 2020 ISL season.
ISL Match 6 Skins Races:
- Men – Freestyle
- Women – Backstroke
In the skins events, each team enters 2 swimmers, as usual, into the 50 meter race. The event is swum as 3 rounds, separated by 3 minutes each, with the field whittled from 8 in round 1 to 4 in round 2 and 2 in round 3. The winner of the medley relays gets the privilege of choosing the skins strokes.
For Energy Standard, that means the first men’s freestyle skins of the season. That was an event last year that served them so well. After Florent Manaudou won the individual 50 free by 4-tenths of a second, he’ll be favored to win. Aqua Centurion’s Szebastian Szabo could play upset there.
Toronto is not good in the men’s 50 free: Michael Chadwick and Blake Pieroni finished 6th and tied-for-7th individually in that event on Sunday. So, even with Toronto getting the choice in the women’s skins, Manaudou has the chance to seal the meet by even just making the final of the 50 free.
In the battle for 2nd, the Breakers have a chance of coming back here on Toronto with Michael Andrew swimming much better in this meet than we’ve seen from him all season.
This choice also likely seals the MVP title for Florent Manaudou. He’s tied with Lisa Bratton in MVP scoring after day 1, but he should easily outscore Bratton in skins scoring. With Kelsey Wog and Evgeny Rylov not getting a skins opportunity, the only swimmer with even a chance of catching him is probably Kylie Masse, who will be the favorite in the women’s skins event, but has 8.5 points to make up.
Toronto didn’t have a better choice than backstroke, but it’s by no-means a guaranteed win for Kylie Masse. She won the 50 back by .11 seconds ahead of Alicja Tchorz of the New York Breakers, and 4 swimmers were within a quarter-of-a-second of Masse (Davies and Seebohm of Energy Standard are the other two).
Masse is a better 200 backstroker than Tchorz, who actually swam better in the 50 on Sunday after the Breakers gave her a break from the 200 back.
So Masse is definitely the favorite, but it’s also not inconceivable, because of the depth in that event, for her to miss out on the final.
A reminder: the team that has chosen the skins event has won the skins points in every meet so far this season.
Team Scores After Day 1:
- Energy Standard – 279
- Toronto Titans – 241
- New York Breakers – 202
- Aqua Centurions – 150