2019 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
- All sports: Friday, July 12 – Sunday, July 28, 2019
- Pool swimming: Sunday, July 21 – Sunday, July 28, 2019
- The Nambu University Municipal Aquatics Center, Gwangju, Korea
- Meet site
- Competition Schedule
- FinaTV Live Stream
- Entry Lists
- Results
After lowering his American Record in the semi-finals of the men’s 50 fly on night one in 22.57, Caeleb Dressel looked like the man to beat heading into the final on day two.
That proved to be true, as Dressel produced the second-fastest swim in history to win the gold medal in a time of 22.35, also lowering his American and World Championship Records set in the semis. He becomes the first American man to win the World title in this event.
Coming into the competition, the 22-year-old held a best time of 22.76, set in the semis at the 2017 World Championships (where he ultimately placed fourth).
He now sits just 0.08 off of Andrii Govorov‘s world record of 22.27.
All-Time Performers, Men’s 50 Fly
- Andrii Govorov (UKR), 22.27 – 2018
- Caeleb Dressel (USA), 22.35 – 2019
- Rafael Munoz (ESP), 22.43 – 2009
- Nicholas Santos (BRA), 22.60 – 2019
- Milorad Cavic (SRB), 22.67 – 2009
Dressel is now 2/2 for gold medals through two days of action. It’s early, but he’s on pace to improve on his record-tying seven golds in 2017 after this event was the only one in which he didn’t stand atop the medal stand.
Oleg Kostin of Russia moved into sixth all-time by winning the silver in 22.70, lowering his National Record of 22.74, and Santos (22.79) edged out the other American Michael Andrew (22.80) for bronze.
Swimming is one of the most complete sports that exist. In addition to the large number of muscles involved, the aquatic environment is ideal for keeping the cardiovascular system healthy, practically at any age.
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Fly Caleb, Fly. Show em what a Fly Wake really is.
Bust em up. Bring it on
Go Team USA🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 From another flying fish.
I’ll be in Tokyo. Ben USOPC Champion Supporter
Baeleb Dwessel will break his first WR tomorrow
Especially since he was half a body length behind Proud (and thus would be of Dressel) at the 15 meter mark in that race.
Does Dressel no longer do the vertical leap before each race?
I guess no one called NASA that there would be a lift off
Even the non-back starts have looked a little sketchy, especially for the men’s sprint events. Seems to be a lot of flex in those starting blocks.
Plus I can’t recall a Worlds or Olympics where the starter has said “stand up” so often.
Video is now up for people like me that need to replay it 3 or 4 times…what a swim!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf6IDJKz1yY
thanks for sharing …
Santos’ entry was a mess
I noticed that as well, I’m surprised he was able to recover as well as he did in that race.
What also stood out to me was how far out of the running Proud was when the camera switched to bird’s eye, especially with the fastest reaction time!
Lastly – the acceleration by Dressel on the last couple strokes; insane!
He lost silver there..
Santos at least would be able to surface ahead/at same place of Dressel..
Santos is 39! Three start stwo days is very hard this age. Old man recovering is slow.. Santos is oldest male swimmer world championships medalist!
Santos is very big athlete nearly 40. Only Dara Torres won Long course worlds or olympics medal older than Santos. Torres was age at 41 Bejing olympics 2008 where she won silver 50freestyle.
his reaction is priceless 🙂
and what he said at the post race interview!
The announcer talking about how he got the bandana
Good swim for Andrew, too, though he missed out on a medal.
It sort of feels as if Team USA may have gotten a little carried away during training camp, and may not have rested enough; dying at the end of races usually indicates that. That, in turn, probably means that the US will get better as the week goes along.
I swear there is a US conspiracy at worlds the year before Olympics to kinda suck. Remember 2015? Awful. I thought it was the end of dominance. 2016 was a bloodbath
Swimming in the US has a real Brooks Koepka like mentality when it comes to performance. Really just show up for the olympics rather than other meets throughout the cycle. This meet a year before the olympics is a great benchmark for established athletes and a chance for some up-and-comers to really make noise/gain confidence (pieroni and apple being great examples)
there isn’t a lot of big money for some of the main athletes that have their endorsements lined up for this meet. FINA is a joke at promoting the swims in real-time. IMO there’s a lot of work that can be done, we’ll see if the ISL can profit off their mistakes/ignorance
Yep, wonder if it a result of overtraining the year before the Olympics and not wanting to do a full taper and lose that training????
I thought we finally killed the “2 year taper” when Lochte bombed while flipping tires around.
He had Dressel-esque hype. Bombed? No one’s been close to doing what he did: 4:05.18 400 IM, 1:53.94 200 back — 30 min later 1:54.90 200 IM, 1:45.05 200 free, 47.7 relay split, 1:45.15 leadoff split. So, if you made a team of Phelps in his prime for both the IMs, suited Piersol or Murphy for the 200 back, no current American 200 freestyler, and the current 6-pack of 47+ freestylers, you’d be able to do what he did.
Nope. If Dressel “bombed” yesterday’s relay because he added .46, then Lochte bombed his 2 back with a 1:53.9, and his 200 free with a 1:45. Be consistent at least.
Pump the brakes, tiger. No one had ever done a 4:05.1 (or since) and then done that schedule, and he was 2 seconds faster in his 400 IM than at 2011 Worlds and dropped time in all his events from OTs to London. Your man crush had done ….wait for it …. two 50’s before he laid that stinker.
I think it has a lot to do with the different selection processes for World’s and the Olympics. For the Olympics, the USA selects the team 4-6 weeks in advance, pretty much guaranteeing that the country’s fastest swimmers at that moment represent it. For pre-Olympic World’s, for reasons unknown, they pick the team over a year in advance, and a lot can happen in a year, include big swimmers retiring or dropping out (Dwyer and Meili), injury (Shoults?), and young guns flourishing (Urlando, Farris) or former top swimmers bouncing back after an off year (possibly someone like Cordes). It pretty much guarantees that you will not be sending a team comprised of your fastest swimmers. I’m really curious to see… Read more »
I totally agree with this. There should have been a world champ trials like there was in 2017.
Andrew lost a medal at the start. I could see on TV that he was last off the blocks. A quick check of the results confirmed that. His R/T in the final wasn’t an anomaly, either; the R/T on all 3 of his 50 fly swims at Gwangju have been within .01. Maybe this is where the lack of weight training has cost him?
I’d like to see time-to-15 as a secondary data point. You can justify a slower RT if you’re getting better drive off the block and hitting the water at a higher velo.
That’s a lot of boy to unwind.
I know all the commenters have decided that the US is having a bad meet and I just don’t get. A lot more people having good swims, than bad ones..