ISU World Tour 2024/25 - Seoul (Stage 4/6)
Mixed 2.000m Relay:
01. South Korea
02. China
03. Canada
Women's 1.500m:
01. Kristen Santos-Griswold
02. Hanne Desmet
03. Corinne Stoddard
Men's 1.000m:
01. William Dandjinou
02. Jens van 't Wout
03. Jang Sungwoo
Women's 500m:
01. Kristen Santos-Griswold
02. Florence Brunelle
03. Hanne Desmet
Men's 5.000m Relay:
01. China
02. Japan
03. South Korea
Yeah, but there as well: are all of these swimmers suddenly the best ever? I know and understand they're good, but it would be an extreme coincidence if in one specific event suddenly a handful of the best ever appear.
It 'smells' way more like either some sort of thing with the pool or some sort of new breakthrough in clothing or something like that, some of the margins with which the records are being smashed are truly insane and seem to go way further than just 'ah, first time she raced in a 25m pool I mean, imagine a 20+ WR world championships in athletics, we'd be desperately looking for explanations (like the super shoes in recent years, so at least there is an explanation there)
Well this is McIntosh's first time racing short course metres since 2022 when she was 16 years old and hadn't yet broken any records so that explains those World Records
Walsh, Crooks, and Douglass are all NCAA swimmers who train in yards all winter. I'm not sure how many times they would've competed in yards but it wouldn't have been a focus meet for them. Crooks won a gold at the 2022 World Championships but he's taken his swimming to a completely different level these last two years. Douglass competed in short course at the World Cups this year and instantly smashed the 200m breaststroke World Record.
Ponti I have no clue.
But having said that, there's definitely been an unusual amount of World records at this meet. Got to be the most at a meet since Rome 2009.