Swimming’s world championships have arrived, with a ‘race of the century’

One yr to the day after the 2024 Olympic swimming competitors started in Paris, the primary main worldwide competitors of the 2028 Olympic cycle is about to start.

The swimming program on the 2025 World Aquatics Championships begins Sunday (Saturday evening Eastern time) in Singapore as Katie Ledecky, Summer McIntosh, Léon Marchand and extra stars from the Paris Games kick off their runs to Los Angeles.

The yr after a Games is often one among transition. Some athletes are taking day off after the Olympic grind. Some have retired. Some new faces are rising, and a few acquainted ones are plowing forward.

“It’s going to be a unique world championships, because you don’t know what you’re going to get,” longtime NBC swimming analyst Rowdy Gaines mentioned by cellphone from Singapore. “You know, in two years, we will kind of know what’s gonna happen, but this is always a strange one, the one after the Games.”

The rivalry between McIntosh, the 18-year-old rising Canadian who gained three golds and a silver in Paris, and Ledecky, the 28-year-old American with extra swimming medals than any girl in historical past, will probably be one of many high storylines over the following week. As will Marchand’s pursuit of extra {hardware}. The 23-year-old French star gained 4 golds in his residence Olympics to stamp his place as the brand new pressure of males’s swimming.

Here’s a have a look at what to maintain your eyes on over the following week in Singapore.

Who wins the Ledecky-McIntosh showdowns?

The first medal occasion on Sunday is the ladies’s 400-meter freestyle, and it’s anticipated to be a showdown between the most effective girls’s swimmer of all time and the most effective proper now.

Ledecky gained gold within the 400 on the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, then took silver in Tokyo in 2021 (behind Australian rival Ariarne Titmus) and bronze in Paris (behind Titmus and McIntosh). McIntosh has the clear edge within the occasion now, having simply set the world document final month on the Canadian trials — one among three she set in 5 days there — in a time of three:54.18. Ledecky’s greatest time this season is greater than two seconds slower, however that point was ok to beat McIntosh of their final assembly within the occasion, in May at a Pro Series meet in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“It’s always a great race when we’re next to each other,” Ledecky mentioned of McIntosh after that one.

Near the top of subsequent week’s meet, Ledecky and McIntosh are scheduled to conflict once more within the 800-meter freestyle in one of the crucial anticipated occasions of the world championships.

“The women’s 800 is the race of the meet,” mentioned Gaines, the gold medalist within the males’s 100-meter freestyle in 1984, “and, for that matter, at least from a world championships standpoint, the race of the century.”

In May, Ledecky broke her 9-year-old world document within the 800 on the Fort Lauderdale occasion, ending in 8:04.12 to greatest her earlier mark by 0.69 seconds. It was a loud message to McIntosh, who in February, after they met on the Southern Zone Sectional Championships, handed Ledecky her first defeat within the occasion since 2010.

But McIntosh hasn’t raced the 800 a lot in worldwide competitors and skipped it in Paris as effectively. Ledecky edged Titmus — who’s skipping worlds this yr to take day off after the Olympics — there for gold.

“Sometimes you build up races, and they don’t play out,” Gaines mentioned. “But this one, I think, it’s going to come down, after eight minutes, to within a half a second.”

McIntosh is scheduled for 5 particular person occasions in Singapore — the 200- and 400-meter particular person medleys (IM) and the 200 butterfly, together with the 2 freestyle races. She’ll be the gold-medal favourite in 4 occasions after setting the world document in each IMs at Canadian trials and proudly owning the quickest time of the yr, by greater than two seconds, within the 200 fly.

Ledecky additionally has the 1,500-meter freestyle on her program. It’s one of many surest issues in sports activities — she owns the 23 quickest occasions ever within the occasion, hasn’t misplaced at that distance since she was 13 years outdated, and the closest anybody else has come to her high time this yr is 15 seconds.

What will Léon Marchand do subsequent?

The Frenchman was the breakout star of his residence Olympics, profitable gold in his 4 occasions, and is predicted to compete in simply the 200-meter particular person medley and the 400-meter IM. That may very well be dangerous information for Ryan Lochte.

Lochte, the previous American swimming star, nonetheless holds the world document within the 200-meter IM (1:54.00) that he set on the 2011 world championships in Shanghai. But with Marchand dropping his two different signature occasions — the 200 breaststroke and the 200 butterfly — to deal with the IMs, he may need sufficient to swipe the 14-year-old document away. Marchand, the two-time defending world champion in each medleys (excluding the 2024 version that he skipped), almost bought the document on the Olympics, ending in 1:54.06.

“Sooner or later, you get a feeling that he’s gonna be the first one to do it, that’s for sure,” Gaines mentioned of Marchand breaking the 14-year-old document. “Nobody else is gonna do it until Léon does it.”

His efficiency in Paris put Marchand into elite firm. The listing of males’s swimmers with no less than 4 particular person Olympic golds in a single Games is Michael Phelps (twice), Mark Spitz and Marchand.

“He’s certainly the greatest since (Phelps),” Gaines mentioned of Marchand, who works with Phelps’ former coach, Bob Bowman. “He’s not in that category yet, but he’s the greatest since Michael dominated, that’s for sure.”

Can Gretchen Walsh proceed her rise?

American Gretchen Walsh entered the Paris Olympics seeking to shed a popularity as a “bathtub swimmer” — referring to her prowess within the 25-meter, short-course swimming pools that place extra emphasis on turns and swimming underwater versus the longer, 50-meter swimming pools used for Olympic competitors. She then gained three relay medals and a person silver within the 100-meter butterfly.

But that silver was a little bit of a shock, provided that Walsh had set the long-course world document within the occasion on the U.S. Olympic trials.

Now, the 22-year-old appears to be like even higher. She owns the quickest occasions this yr within the 50-meter freestyle, 50-meter butterfly and 100-meter butterfly. That consists of resetting her world document within the 100-meter butterfly twice on the identical day (within the heats after which within the last) in Fort Lauderdale.

“I think going into Paris and being the world-record holder, she wanted that gold medal,” Gaines mentioned. “… I don’t suppose it’s gnawing at her, definitely, however I believe she’s bought one thing to show — ‘Hey, me breaking the world record was no fluke.’”

Walsh has an aggressive schedule in Singapore, with four individual races and likely multiple relays. With the 50-meter butterfly among the adds to the Olympic program for 2028, Walsh is on track to be a major name to watch in Los Angeles.

“I’m very enthusiastic about (the addition of the 50-meter race to the Olympics),” Walsh mentioned in Fort Lauderdale, “and the opportunity to focus on this event more and emphasize it more in my lineup.”

Who will emerge for the U.S. males?

The most adorned latest title in U.S. males’s swimming, Caeleb Dressel, isn’t in Singapore, and the Americans are coming off an Olympics with only a single particular person males’s gold — Bobby Finke within the 1,500-meter freestyle. It was their worst displaying in that statistic since 1956, when there have been simply six particular person males’s occasions.

But with three years to go till Los Angeles, there’s time for younger expertise to develop. Luka Mijatovic is amongst these names. At 16, he’s the youngest American male swimmer to compete at worlds since Phelps in 2001. At final month’s U.S. nationals, he set nationwide age-group data within the 200- and 400-meter freestyles — even besting the 17- and 18-year-old group document occasions.

“I think this guy is going to be a rocket ship in the future,” Gaines mentioned, “and especially in events that the U.S. has been pretty weak on.”

There’s additionally Campbell McKean, 18, who gained the 50- and 100-meter breaststroke occasions at nationals to qualify for worlds. His profitable time of 58.96 seconds was the primary time he’d damaged the one-minute barrier — a big leap in such a brief race.

“The men will be great in L.A.,” Gaines predicted. “Once L.A. rolls around, these young kids like Luca Urlando (23) and Thomas Heilman (18), and some of the people that most people have never heard of, you’re gonna hear a lot about in the next three years.”

What else to know?

— Australia’s Kaylee McKeown additionally has a wonderful shot at a number of gold medals. She has been the backstroke queen the final two Olympics, profitable gold within the 100- and 200-meter in each. Americans Regan Smith and Katharine Berkoff would be the high contenders to cease her.

Smith, particularly, will probably be anxious for one more crack at it. She set the still-standing world document within the 100-meter at U.S. trials final yr simply earlier than the Olympics, however swam the ultimate in Paris a half-second slower, ending second to McKeown. Five days later, she set an Olympic document within the 100 backstroke in the course of the girls’s medley relay. Berkoff, in the meantime, has the world’s greatest time within the 50-meter race this yr.

— The males’s 100-meter freestyle in Paris was blazing quick, with all eight swimmers within the last ending underneath 48 seconds, the primary time that had ever occurred within the occasion. China’s Pan Zhanle set the world document in that race, and he and Australia’s Kyle Chalmers headline a discipline that may function seven of the eight finalists from that Paris race.

“(Pan) is going to be the favorite, without a doubt,” Gaines mentioned of the race he conquered 41 years in the past. “But with (American Jack Alexy) and some of the other guys out there, (Romania’s David) Popovici, it’s going to be a great race.”

— In whole, 21 of the 28 particular person gold medalists from Paris are scheduled to compete in the identical occasions in Singapore. The absences: Sweden’s Sarah Sjöström within the 50- and 100-meter freestyle (taking the yr off), Australia’s Titmus within the 400 freestyle, South Africa’s Tatjana Smith within the 100 breaststroke (retired), Marchand within the 200 breast and 200 butterfly, and Hungary’s Kristóf Milák within the 200 backstroke (withdrew).

— If you’re within the U.S., all periods will probably be streaming on Peacock. The prelim periods run each evening Saturday by way of Aug. 2, beginning at 10 p.m. ET. The morning medal-race periods start at 7 a.m. ET day-after-day Sunday by way of Aug. 3.

(Top picture of Katie Ledecky competing within the 800-meter freestyle on the U.S. nationwide championships in June: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)