Coverage of the 2015 FINA World Championships is sponsored by Wylas Timing. Visit our coverage page for more.
USA Swimming took home the most medals with a total of 23 in the pool swimming portion of 2015 FINA World Championships. USA led in the gold (8) and the silver (10) medal count. Led by their women, Australia won 7 golds, 3 silvers and 6 bronze medals. China was third with a total of 13 medals; winning 5 gold, 1 silver and 7 bronze.
The 2015 FINA World Championship certainly sets an exciting tone for the sport of swimming as all eyes are now looking toward Rio for the Olympics in 2016
I’ve been following the United States in international competitions for 60 years. I cannot recall a worse showing than this one. We were fortunate that Katie Ledecky was around otherwise it would have been a total embarrassment. USA Swimming must do some serious soul searching to get this team ready for Rio. And one more thing: a big clunker to all our collegiate teams who train our foreign competitors. Winning at all costs is certainly not dead for them
I’m OK with USA training foreign competitors, in the spirit of having the best competition. I am ambivalent and more negative about those foreign swimmers getting scholarships over USA collegiate swimmers, but that’s a separate issue. It’s not just college programs that train foreign swimmers though, USS clubs do as well. This outcome is a potential tradeoff, although if you look closely, more of the foreign swimmers winning medals do not train in the USA than do.
But the days of picking World teams a year in advance, and the days of NC2A and USS club swimming in the antiquated short course yards format for half the year, should be over by now. If USSwimming doesn’t learn that from this outcome, then they will be responsible for similar outcomes in the future.
You can count on Phelps for 3 individual medals in Rio and a better fit Franklin to make much more of a splash.
Looking solely at Olympic events, the hierarchy reads:
USA 6G 8S 4B 18T
AUS 7G 3S 4B 14T
CHN 3G 1S 5B 9T
HUN 3G 2S 3B 8T
JAP 3G 1S 1B 5T
GBR 3G 1S 2B 6T
FRA 2G 1S 1B 4T
Of these golds, you can say Ledecky looks a “lock” on 400 & 800, W4X200 looks secure. Ledecky could win the 200FS but its still realistically an open race & no certainty. Phelps return certainly brings 100 & 200 fly very much into play & strengthens the M4X200, but that relay plus the M4X100 do really need an injection of new blood.
AUS may have more Olympic event gold but probably only the W4X100 looks a Ledecky like “lock” on gold. The likes of Seebohm, Larkin & C2 may well win gold in Rio, or go in as favourites but they’re not yet at that position of ‘dominance’. Most of their medals look to be strong medal contenders with the only “rubbery” ones looking to be M4X200, Ashwood (W400) & perhaps W4XMED given the weakness of middle legs.
You can count on MP for 3 individual medals and a better fit Franklin to make more of a splash.
LOL How about reporting on the results of the entire FINA competition instead of reporting just the portion that the US won? Trying to make it look like the US won the whole competition, anybody?
China: 15G 10S 10B 35 Total
USA: 13G 14S 6B 33 Total
Victor! You are so right. Hungary could claim that they won the competition because of the size of her population. Then there are countries that could claim they won because they have not too many, may be one, Olympic size pool.