2017 FINA WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Sunday, July 23rd – Sunday, July 30th
- Budapest, Hungary
- LCM (50m)
- Full Competition Schedule
- Meet Info
- Psych Sheets
- Omega Results
- Pick ’em Contest
- Event-by-Event Previews
The green and gold Dolphins of Australia have indeed landed on the podium in Budapest, but have yet to secure their first gold of these world championships. Compare this year’s performance thus far to that of 2015 in Kazan where the Aussies had already 3 gold medals to their credit. Even with key swimmers such as Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers and Rio silver medalist Maddie Groves not competing, the Aussies still have enough fire power to keep towards the top of the standings. But will it be enough to add a tally in the gold column?
Medalists through day 3 in 2015 for the Australians included Emily Seebohm and Mitch Larkin, who each nabbed the top prize in the 100m backstroke, while the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay clinched gold ahead of the Americans back in Kazan. Also standing on the podium were Madi Wilson, who earned silver in the 100m backstroke, and Jess Ashwood, the Australians’ 400m freestyle bronze medalist.
Flash forward to 2017 and Wilson didn’t make the squad in the backstroke events, while Ashwood bowed out of this meet entirely. Seebohm did finish with a very respectable bronze medal in the 100m back tonight, but Larkin found himself in 6th and out of the medals in the men’s edition of the race.
There are still bright spots for the Aussies in the form of 3 silver medals here in Budapest, with 2 of those in individual races. Emma McKeon earned a huge silver behind Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom in the 100m butterfly, an event in which she finaled in Rio, but wasn’t able to produce come crunch time. Mack Horton took silver behind China’s Sun Yang in the 400m freestyle event as well.
McKeon is ready to take on more individual swims as the 2nd-seeded competitor into tomorrow night’s 200m freestyle. She’ll also be racing in additional relays and the 100m freestyle. Horton still has the 1500m free, although he did bow out of the men’s 800m free, an event in which he had a solid shot at medaling. Seebohm and Larkin still have the 50 and 200 backstroke events, with additional Aussies, including sprinting maestro Cameron McEvoy, left to chase the elusive first gold.
2015 Swimming Medal Table Through Day 3
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Australia |
3 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 2 | Great Britain |
2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 3 | France |
2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 4 | United States |
2 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| 5 |  China |
1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 6 | Russia* |
1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 7 | Hungary |
1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| 8 |  Sweden |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 9 | Netherlands |
0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 10 |  Denmark |
0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
2017 Swimming Medal Table Through Day 3
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  United States |
5 | 6 | 3 | 14 |
| 2 |  China |
3 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| 3 |  Great Britain |
2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 4 |  Hungary |
1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 5 |  Canada |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
 Sweden |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 7 |  Australia |
0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| 8 |  Brazil |
0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 9 |  Japan |
0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
 Spain |
0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 11 |  Russia |
0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| 12 |  Italy |
0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 13 |  Netherlands |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 Ukraine |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Total | 13 | 13 | 13 | 39 | |
It has been a disappointing WC for the Aussies till date…a traditional powerhouse and a few years ago the only rival to challenge the US …is now languishing..in the also rans..champion teams ..have World records as personal bests… and multiple gold medalists…countries like Canada, Great Britain and Hungary, china, Japan..,have leapfrogged..the Aussies..and unless the prove it ..soon.. I am sorry …silvers and persona bests will only be sour grapes…and to compound problems …they have found a way… not to produce their best at the worlds or Olympics…when they at times have the world leading times at that time…
Australia is going well considering we’re not at full strength, but our swimmers risk another Rio debacle in Tokyo by being financially humiliated by a coach-based peak administration body entrusted to spend public funds on their behalf. Of the $38 million intended to prepare our Rio team, swimmers received a tiny fraction in direct benefits. There are currently 53 members on Australia’s Budapest team, but only 31 are swimmers. Many of the 22 other members pander to a whole bunch of faux services swimmers have been told they need.
Our swimmers were figuratively tarred and feathered when they returned from Rio because of a largely coach-driven narrative that they choked. For putting up with this criticism our very best… Read more »
Hope at least oz will get one gold medal
Otherwise the worst result in millenium swimming
Look at sjorstorm, she won gold in kazan and rio but in budapest she still wins gold,
Ledecky, adam pity they did well
The only oz swimmer fail to get gold so far
Hope mc keon will get gold
Forget about bronte campbell, mc evoy, larkin and others they were chock at highest level
Only 5 percent oz swimmer go thru final so far
Im myhappy opinion emma mckeon the only good swimmer for oz, the rest worst ever
Hope emma mc keon will do the best in final
Mc evoy can swim good at heat and sf but come to final always gone
They choked at the Olympics- C Campbell, B Campbell, McEvoy and Seebohm just to name 4 who did medal winning splits in relays right through the Olympics and choked in the their individual events. Others did medal winning performances at the Aus Trials and failed to deliver. These had nothing to do with coaching excuses or funding ratios etc…though they may also be a problem.
Thanks Torchbearer, whoever you are.
I think such a broad based failure indicates a systemic preparation problem. The choke narrative was an expedient promoted by self-serving head coach Jacco to save his skin (unlike Cate who is such an accommodating person she felt obliged to repeat it.)
Pay our world leading swimmers as much as other top professional sportsmen and they’ll make sure it doesn’t happen next time, even with bad coaching. Put up even half of that $38 million in Rio medal incentives and there will be fire in the bellies of every Australian senior and junior swimmer for decades to come.They won’t need sham funding arrangements like “podium squads” where the money goes to coaches with… Read more »
Brad, I think that the truth …. probably falls somewhere in between.
In some ways, Verhaeren said what was just the plain truth. To what degree he is to blame …. open to question. Perhaps some of his ‘calls’ can be questioned yet he is NOT responsible for the specific preparations of the individual swimmers; that is the business of their own coaches (some of whom were on the team), Should AUS swimmers been sent to more intl meets in the lead-up …. absolutely but just how enthusiastic would said swimmers and coaches have been; just not sure you’d have unanimity ! Having early Trials ,,,, thats a SAL policy decision made above the level of the Head Coach.
In… Read more »
Brad, I think there is no one complete answer to what went wrong nor one specific issue/scapegoat to which blame can be sheeted home.
Yes, the bureaucracy have their questions to answer but there are an awful lot of parties to the transaction. Just what DO these state academies of sport do other than be another dispersal of funds … is this efficient or even serving any positive purpose ? DO some SAL heads need to fall ….. yes, but will we see any improvement with the replacements ? Just saying ‘we need former swimmers or people who know swimming” doesn’t necessarily mean things will improve. Do such people actually have the necessary abilities, time or even the desire to… Read more »
Cheers Commonwombat.
I have never advocated swimmers getting their voices onto administrative bodies. This just turns them into politicians and the political instinct corrupts the sportsman’s.
What I do advocate is swimmers taking whatever action they need to demand they get paid on a level with other world leading athletes. Don’t bother trying to effect change from within. They don’t need to.
They must be getting extremely bad advice to settle for what they do and then to cop the public vitriol they do. In the wake of Thorpe and Hackett difficulties, apparently the sponsor dollar is hard to come by.
I would love to see them boycott Tokyo unless they are assured a $20 million… Read more »
After last World Championship & the following Olympic national titles, I went to Olympics with strong confidence with Australia getting a few golds (min 6-7, McEvoy, Campbell, Larkin, Seebohm, Horton, a couple of relays) & was totally devastated. With this world championship have gone in with no expectation & have seen some pleasant surprises & know we really lack the racing cutting edge that the Americans has.
Hopefully we wiil have our first gold medal tonight in the girls 200 free.
Go Emma !!!
With you all the way there!!!
IF Ledecky is to be “thrown”, this is the one event where it is possible and McKeon looks the most likely to do so. She will most likely have to swim a PB of around 0.5-07sec to be in the ball park but the fact that we are seriously considering this to be a possibility is a tribute to how well she is swimming here.
The realist in me says “don’t think so” and I think Ledecky WILL win but it would be great if she’s given a real fright … and McKeon certainly looks like she could. Think she’ll be walking away with silver although the Russian Popova swam a mega PB is semis and Pellegrini is still dangerous,… Read more »
Yes agreed indeed
I watched last nite 100 w bsrtk was thinking russian will win finally lily took gold
Hopefully emma m c keon dont mke mistake like her final btrfly in rio come with no medal
Pelegrini still dangerous so does honzsu
Can u tell me why cate campbell could not win in rio, she broke or in heat and sf
Come to final oh my god the worst idiot swimmer in olympic history
Hopefully in tokyo will replace to other swimmer
I remember your reaction and could empathise. Being an ancient marsupial, I have seen the real lows of Montreal and the hard slog of the 80s as well as the boom times and I don’t think it had registered that London has been no aberration but a message that the boom times had finished. One hopes that the message had finally got through with Rio but the mentality of some is still rather a worry.
Going in, I was not really seeing any real gold medal chances, only a couple where they would be perhaps “2nd money” ie W4X100, Seebohm. Realistically, it will be a major surprise if they DO leave Budapest with any gold.
McKeon, to date, has… Read more »
Good to see lots of PBs, but the competition is getting ridiculous- it will more or less take a WR to win any women’s 100m event for example!
Fair results for the Australians thus far. The women challenged strongly in the 4×100. Mack a bit outside his best rebounding from last year but still respectable. McKeon the real highlight obviously, hopefully her form holds up now in the 200. Seebohm gets some reward, wonder how long she’ll keep grinding though. Competitive showings from Titmus and Cartwright(keen to see his 100). A few other young guys have had descent hit outs and will be better for this experience. Those are the positives to build on.
Agreed on Cartwright…his 47.51 prelims relay split was encouraging.
Also swam a PB 48.34 leading off M4x100