Five Storylines for the ISL Playoffs: More World Records on the Horizon?
The International Swimming League is back. After a five-week regular season in September in which all meets were held in Naples, Italy, the league is shifting to Eindhoven for the home stretch. Eight teams have advanced to the playoffs for a three-week round-robin, and the top four of those squads will compete in the third ISL final December 3-4. The series brought some excitement to a normally quiet month after the Olympics, particularly when a world record was broken unexpectedly during the second meet of the season, and we can expect more of that with the stakes raised for the playoffs.
The playoffs begin Nov. 11-12 with 2019 league champion Energy Standard and 2020 champion Cali Condors competing against each other for the first time this season in a match that also includes DC Trident and Team Iron, and the other four teams remaining (Aqua Centurions, London Roar, LA Current and Toronto Titans) hit the pool Nov. 13-14.
Here are the five biggest storylines we are watching over the next month in Eindhoven:
1. The World Record Chase Continues
Admittedly, short course meters world records are not quite as prestigious as long course records, especially when many of the world’s best swimmers eschew the Short Course World Championships, but the first two seasons of the ISL have seen plenty of records go down, and we should expect more as this season reaches crunch time. Already, Coleman Stewart broke the world record in the men’s 100 backstroke in Cali Condors’ first meet of the season, his 48.33 knocking a quarter-second off Kliment Kolesnikov’s world record.
That record should be on alert to go down at some point over the next four weeks. In the playoffs, Stewart will face off against all three medalists from the Tokyo Olympics in the 100 back: Russians Evgeny Rylov and Kolesnikov (both representing Energy Standard) and American Ryan Murphy (of LA Current). London Roar will counter with Brazilian Guilherme Guido, who has won the 100 back three times this season. That’s a lot of star power in one event.
Kyle Chalmers broke the world record in the men’s 100 free last month — Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
The other SCM world record to fall this year was the men’s 100 free, where Kyle Chalmers swam a 44.84 at the FINA World Cup in Kazan to break Amaury Leveaux’s 13-year-old world record by a tenth. And now, Chalmers will face off against chief rival and 100 free Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel. Dressel narrowly missed that record last year as he won the ISL final in 45.08, so they will both be gunning for Chalmers’ new mark. And Dressel has not lost to Chalmers head to head since 2018.
For the women, the best record chance is probably the 100 free, where superstar Emma McKeon swam a 50.58 on the FINA World Cup circuit to match the second-fastest performance in history, three tenths shy of the world record, the 50.25 belonging to fellow Australian Cate Campbell. Maybe Sarah Sjostrom could take a stab at the 50 free record after she swam a 23.17 during the regular season, not far off Ranomi Kromowidjojo’s record of 22.93. Sjostrom appears to be back in form following an elbow injury that derailed her preparation for the Olympics.
Of course, Dressel is a record threat in any event he swims — and indeed, he broke the WR in the 50 free, 100 fly and 100 IM in last year’s final. In the sprint breaststroke events, Ilya Shymanovich should be close to the all-time top marks. It’s the same story in women’s breaststroke, where if Lilly King is on form, she should be close to all three breaststroke records.
2. Energy Standard vs. Cali Condors Again?
James Guy will join Energy Standard for this year’s ISL playoffs — Photo Courtesy: Mine Kasapoglu / ISL
No one is going to argue that these two squads are loaded. Energy Standard will bring a team consisting of Sjostrom, Chad le Clos, Siobhan Haughey, the aforementioned Russians, Florent Manaudou and James Guy, who will be added after missing the regular season. Among other stars. Cali has Dressel, King, Stewart, Beata Nelson, Kelsi Dahlia and a host of others on the U.S.-dominated squad, including playoff addition Hali Flickinger.
Neither team has any significant stroke weaknesses that will be crippling
The only team with the potential to break up this 1-2 is London Roar, led by Chalmers, McKeon, Guido and Duncan Scott. The only time one of the favorites lost a match this season came in Match #6, when the Roar took advantage of Dressel’s absence on day two to steal one from Cali. It would take an upset, but this team has the pieces to pull that off — although not having breaststroke star Adam Peaty definitely takes away some magic from this upset-minded group. It turns out that men’s breaststroke is the biggest hole for the Roar in this year without Peaty.
3. What is the Future of the ISL?
Through two full seasons of the ISL and five weeks of a third, almost everyone who has attended an ISL meet has raved about what they see. The races come fast and furious while the four teams cheer hard from their team sections, basically all you could ask for from a swim meet. But while the majority of swimmers really enjoy racing in the league, some serious issues remain before we can be completely sure it will become a permanent fixture on swimming’s calendar.
Most recently, news emerged that swimmers from one team were considering a boycott of the ISL playoffs because of missed payments from the 2020 season. Several ISL swimmers confirmed to Swimming World that they had only recently received their final payments from the 2020 season, while a few admitted they had not been paid in full. Additionally, some vendors may not have been paid in full from the previous seasons.
Meanwhile, the league announced just this week that the ISL final will be held December 3-4 in Eindhoven after previously suggesting an early January finish for the league in an unknown location. That announcement coming less than five weeks before the meet did not reflect well on the league and its organizational skills.
And of course, it does not help that the league has yet to gain significant traction with all swimming fans and certainly not the new fans it hoped to draw in. The league has not been on television in the United States on a weekend since the very first weekend of the regular season, and none of the playoff meets are scheduled to be televised. The only way to watch, then, is on the ISL’s paywalled streaming platform. It has not helped the league’s cause that some of its rules are confusing — like checkpoints and jackpots — and that makes the competition difficult for fans to follow.
Some ISL swimmers have admitted harboring concerns about the league’s future. Certainly, the situation with the league’s finances bears watching as we move forward through these playoffs and looking ahead to what the league hopes will be its fourth season next fall.
4. New Stars Emerging
Ingrid Wilm has five individual wins so far this ISL season — Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
So far, the biggest surprise swimmer of the 2021 ISL season has been 23-year-old Canadian Ingrid Wilm. Competing for the LA Current, Wilm already has five individual wins this season, three each in the 100 back and one each in the 50 back and 200 back, and she actually swept the three events during Match #8. Wilm’s top 100 backstroke time this season is 55.61, two tenths ahead of more famed countrywoman Kylie Masse, the Olympic silver medalist in the 100 back. Wilm has yet to qualify for an Olympics or long course World Championships, but maybe this ISL season will turn out to be her breakthrough moment.
And speaking of impressive Canadians, how about 15-year-old Summer McIntosh of the Toronto Titans? After qualifying for her first Olympics in Tokyo and then her first individual final in the 400 free, McIntosh has three individual wins in this ISL season. She showed she can do more than just freestyle with her 200 fly and 400 IM wins in Match #1, and then she took first in her signature 400 free in Match #5 before she departed Naples and headed home. Her 400 free time of 3:58.78 is the top time in the league this season by almost a second, so definitely pay close attention to McIntosh whenever she is in the pool.
No other obvious breakout candidates stand out, but keep an eye out during the season’s first week or two for who looks like a star. We will find out quickly. Maybe late-blooming 24-year-old Arianna Castiglioni can continue her remarkable year and give King a push in the shorter breaststroke events?
5. The Last Stand for Pellegrini and Heemskerk
Federica Pellegrini will swim her final meets during the ISL playoffs in Eindhoven — Photo Courtesy: Mine Kasapoglu/ISL
Eindhoven will mark the end for two Olympic champions, Italy’s Federica Pellegrini and the Netherlands’ Femke Heemskerk. Both used the ISL season for one last opportunity to compete in front of their home fans (Pellegrini in Naples and Heemskerk now in Eindhoven) and get a well-deserved sendoff. It was not clear if Pellegrini was going to stick around for the second phase of this season following Naples, but she will be on hand to provide a strong 200 free for the Aqua Centurions and contribute to relays.
Heemskerk, who won Olympic gold in 2008 as part of the women’s 400 free relay for the Netherlands, is considered one of the top relay performers ever. The 34-year-old split a lightning-quick 52.05 anchoring the Dutch 400 free relay at this year’s Olympics, and she was faster in prelims with a 51.90. The only other swimmer to split 51 in the entire meet was McKeon. Heemskerk also had a massive individual breakthrough this year when she won her first individual European title in the 100 free.
Those are the only two swimmers who have announced the forthcoming ends of their careers, but there could be some surprise retirements as well. Immediately after an Olympics is a pretty normal time for a swimmer to decide to be done, and maybe someone simply chose to tack on one more run in the ISL before retirement. After all, the league provides an opportunity for swimmers to have some fun and make some money in a lower-stakes environment. So don’t be surprised if there are others on the same path as Pellegrini and Heemskerk who have not yet made their intentions public.
Cali finished 3rd in the final the first season. Not 1 or 2 as listed