Morning Splash by David Rieder.
Kathleen Baker didn’t swim the 200 back at Olympic Trials. She had been focusing on the 100 back in the lead-up, and after she made the team by finishing second in that event, she opted to get back to training a few days early.
Regardless, Baker would have been a long shot to make the team in the 200 back with the likes of Missy Franklin, Elizabeth Beisel and eventual Olympic gold medalist Maya DiRado all present. So she passed, and she ended up doing just fine for herself in Rio, winning a silver medal in the 100 back and a gold as part of the U.S. women’s 400 medley relay.
But after a sophomore year at Cal in which she won three NCAA titles, including the 200-yard back (almost taking down the American record in the process), Baker put the long course 200 back on her radar. There would be no DiRado at Nationals and no Franklin, leaving a completely wide-open field.
So what if Baker had never gone under 2:10 before? She promptly led prelims with a 2:08.56, and then in the final, she dominated. Baker finished more than two seconds ahead of the field and touched in 2:06.38, moving past reigning World Champion Emily Seebohm (2:06.66) as the top performer in the world this year.
For some perspective, DiRado’s gold medal-winning time last summer was 2:05.99, less than a half-second quicker.
“I definitely wanted to go a 2:07—that was my goal—so to go a 2:06-low definitely blew it out of the water for me,” Baker said. “This is the first time I’ve gotten to focus on it since 2014, and I’ve gotten a lot stronger since then, and I’m in better shape. That was actually my first national title ever, so that was pretty cool, too.”
So what does it all mean? First and foremost, Baker sure looks like a contender for an individual 200 medal at Worlds. Outside of the high-tech suit era of 2009, it has never even taken a sub-2:07 performance to get on a 200 back podium at a major meet.
Still, Baker is best suited to the 100-meter distance. Like Seebohm and Canada’s Kylie Masse, she has extended her range, but her skills in the two-lap race were evident when she surprised the world with an Olympic silver medal in Rio.
Her speed seems to be clicking as well, as Baker finished second in the 50 back Thursday night, her final time of 27.69 just six hundredths behind winner Hannah Stevens.
How low can she go in the 100? It looks like a good bet that she can be faster than the 58.75 she posted to pick up the silver medal in Rio. Only three swimmers—Masse, Seebohm and Fu Yuanhui—have been under 59 this year.
Most notably, Masse stunned the world back in April when she dropped a 58.21 to win the event at Canada’s World Championship Trials. She was only nine hundredths off Gemma Spofforth’s eight-year-old, suit-aided world record of 58.12.
Is Baker capable of a run at a record, either the global standard or Missy Franklin’s American record of 58.33? The fact that she didn’t swim either the 50 or the 200 last summer makes it challenging to compare improvement, but it would seem foolish to rule anything out.
Of course, with the depth of the field in the U.S. in the 100 back, Baker might need to go that quick to even secure a spot in the event in Budapest, with Stevens, Ali DeLoof and Olympic finalist Olivia Smoliga all in the field. Even Regan Smith, just 15 years old, will have to be taken seriously after Smith finished second behind Baker in the 200 back, posting a time of 2:08.55.
So, no, it could certainly take under 59, perhaps well under, to make the World Champs team in the 100 back.
But the favorite, undoubtedly, is Baker. She has every reason to be feeling confident, going back to her win in the 200 back, back to her dominant efforts in both backstroke races at the NCAA championships and back to her Olympic silver medal.
It was that effort in Rio that started a wave of momentum that Baker has been riding ever since.
All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.
Kathleen looks great… Good luck chasing the WR, Kathleen!
But just to be clear, Gemma Spofforth’s current record was NOT suit aided… she raced in a Speedo, not a plastic suit, which makes the period she’s held the record all the more impressive.