Shaine Casas Flashing Greatness Again on World Cup Circuit
Shaine Casas is no stranger to posting elite times after the year’s premier international competition has concluded. In 2019, he broke onto the scene with quick backstroke marks at U.S. Nationals, which was held the week after World Championships. Two years later, Casas narrowly missed the Olympic team, but a few months later, he won six medals, including gold in the 100 backstroke at the Short Course World Championships.
The difference this year was that Casas did qualify for the year’s top meet, the World Championships in Budapest, and he was brilliant in his lone event there, winning 200 back bronze. But his best performances came six weeks later at U.S. Nationals, when he swam the third-fastest time in the world this year in the 100 butterfly (50.40) and the second-best mark for 2022 in the 200 IM (1:55.24). Casas moved into a tie for sixth all-time in the 100 fly and seventh ever in the 200 IM.
Where was Casas in those events at Worlds? He didn’t qualify, largely because he skipped the events at the U.S. International Team Trials. He picked the 50 back over the 100 fly on the third day of that meet and then sat out the 200 IM on the final day. Surely, the 22-year-old from McAllen, Texas, won’t make that mistake again. Not now, when he knows his elite ceiling as a world-class performer in those events.
Casas has already collected a handful of international medals, but maybe this short course season will be remembered as his true global emergence. Casas already has a full program for this year’s edition of Short Course Worlds in Melbourne, Australia, including the 200 back, 200 IM, 100 fly, 50 fly and likely the 100 IM. His freestyle skills will make him a centerpiece of several U.S. relays.
Interestingly, Casas will not defend last year’s 100 back title because of the presence of Ryan Murphy and Hunter Armstrong on this year’s team, but he will be plenty busy, and his performances this weekend at the World Cup stop in Toronto gave a sense of Casas’ capabilities in the 25-meter course.
He won four events in Toronto: the 200 back (1:48.99), 100 IM (51.03), 200 IM (1:50.37) and 100 back (48.84). He struggled in the 100 fly prelims, but that race was held just minutes after the 200 back. In the four finals, he surpassed last year’s world-title-winning time in three of the races, while the 200 back mark was less than two tenths shy of his own silver-medal time from last year.
Casas’ 200 IM mark of 1:50.37 was the fastest time recorded in almost a decade, with Ryan Lochte still holding the world record at 1:49.63 from the 2012 edition of Short Course Worlds. And the 100 back effort made him the third-fastest man in history as he defeated world-record holder Coleman Stewart by more than a second (although the U.S. might not miss him too much in the event in Melbourne with an elite lineup of backstrokers scheduled to attend).
World records are in the conversation for Casas, perhaps as soon as next week’s World Cup finale in Indianapolis but certainly in December in Melbourne. He will undoubtedly head to Worlds as a strong medal contender in each of his events, and if France’s Leon Marchand is absent, Casas will be the strong favorite for gold in the 100 and 200 IM.
Of course, it’s important to offer the disclaimer that short course success does not equal long course success, and that is the measuring stick most used to evaluate swimming success, fairly or unfairly. Securing a collection of short course hardware this year would be great, but to fulfill the immense talent that has intrigued swimming fans for years, Casas needs to display everything he is capable of at a major long course championship meet, too.
His single-event cameo in Budapest was a start, but after years of swimming his best a few weeks or months too late, Casas surely has designs on a big week at next summer’s long course World Championships in Fukuoka.