The HardCoreSwim of the week goes to Mack Horton, who in a meet that by definition is full of stars at the Junior World Championships, stood out as the top of the heap, winning 7 gold medals, plus a silver on top of it.
But which swim gets it?
He swam a 1:47.5 in the 200 free, that whacked more than two seconds off of his lifetime best. He swam a 3:47.1 in the 400 free, which knocked five full seconds off of his lifetime best. He swam a 7:45 in the 800 free, which knocked 14 seconds off of his lifetime best and ranks him 5th in the world this year.
He capped things off with a 14:56.60 in the 1500 free, his lifetime best by three seconds and another top-7 globally ranked swim that would have final’ed at Worlds. None of those swims, as good as they were, got us the most excited.
In fact, the Hardcore Swim of the Week goes to the one race that he didn’t win: his anchor in the Australian 800 free relay, where he closed in 1:45.84.
With a lot of people in Australia were upset when such a young, promising swimmer as Horton wasn’t given the opportunity to swim at the World Championships, and that 1:45.84 was one final HUZZAH to Swimming Australia about what they were missing. Remember that their 800 free relay didn’t even final at Worlds, and Horton’s presence would have easily given them that.
If you don’t like the award being won by a silver-medal swim when there were so many golden opportunities, then honorable mention goes to his 800 free. His 7:45 would have finished 5th at Worlds: bumping his countrymate, and fellow very young distance swimmer, Jordan Harrison from that spot.
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Of course a hardcore performance can be the leg of a relay even if it doesn’t bring you gold. Mack’s relay swim is a very good choice.
Similarly, I’d say Sun Yang’s individual events were overshadowed by his anchoring in the 4×200-metres freestyle relay in Barcelona.
No . Mac would not have been selected to swim the heats of the BCN relay.
This meet is an extra 4 weeks from BCN & more in line with the usual off season prep that Australia does than the seniors at Bcn. Without a national coach advising several squads were ill prepared. Another few weeks might have seen some better mid distance efforts such as Australia had here. ( w 400 800 m200-1500!)whereas they were ALl considerably off in BCN.
Btw Mac spent part of the winter training with David Mckeon & Jarrod Poort (5th 5k Bcn).
Not to disrespect Dressel or anyone else, but an easy choice. Glad to see the great Aussie tradition in the long distance events go on.