Grousing about the methodology behind official event and sport rankings can become a sport unto itself. Here we breakdown the competition scoring system used on the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2023 tour. 

Who's on Top? Men’s and Women’s Overall Swimming World Cup 2023 Leaderboards

After all the exciting action from three days of racing at the opening tour stop of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup in Berlin, it’s time to take a look at the overall men’s and women’s leaderboards.

Men’s Overall Leaderboard

Following the racing in the German capital, here are the top-5 standings on the men’s side:

1. Qin Haiyang (CHN) – 58.7
2. Thomas Ceccon (ITA) – 57.7
3. Danas Rapsys (LTU) – 54.8
4. Michael Andrew (USA) – 54.5
5. Matthew Sates (RSA) – 54.4

Qin parlayed the breaststroke triple – 50m, 100m and 200m events – to the top honours in Berlin, with his point total aided by the extremely fast times he posted. Qin set World Cup Records in all three finals, with his race times equating to 960, 961 and 965 AQUA Points. If Qin continues to race at this level in both Athens and Budapest, he will be nearly impossible to beat for the male overall title.

Women’s Overall Leaderboard

Heading into the second tour stop in Athens, Greece, here are the top-5 standings in the women’s field:

1. Kaylee McKeown (AUS) – 58.6
2. Zhang Yufei (CHN) – 55.2
3. Siobhan Haughey (HKG) – 54.1
4. Sarah Sjostrom (SWE) – 53.8
5. Erika Fairweather (NZL) – 53.6

The World Record-holder in the 100m and 200m backstroke, McKeown relied on her preferred stroke to top the women’s table in Berlin. She most impressed on Saturday night when she went sub-58 seconds in the 100m backstroke.

While her best scoring races came in the 50m-100m-200m backstroke treble, McKeown showed her versatility by also winning the women’s 200m IM for good measure. This race didn’t count towards her points total (more on this just below), but McKeown’s Medley performance just shows the depth and range McKeown possesses.

Points Breakdown | How Scoring Works on the Swimming World Cup

Only the three top points races from a Swimming World Cup meet count towards an athlete’s overall points score.

Athletes score event points in two ways: their place in the final (position points) and how close they get to the current World Record (performance points). Adding the position and performance points determines the athlete’s score for that event. 

Part I: Position Points 

For every individual event, points are awarded to the finalists:

Part II: Performance Points

For every individual event, athletes also earn performance points determined by the World Aquatics Points scoring system. These performance points measure how close an athlete swims to a current World Record.

In the women’s 100m backstroke, McKeown scored 19.7 points – the highest individual race score recorded in Berlin. She earned 10 points for winning the race and 9.7 points for her performance.   

For those more visually inclined, here’s Swimming World Cup 2023 host John Mason succinctly breaking down the scoring system:

Overall Series Payday | Big Money on the Line

With a USD 1.2 million prize purse (before bonuses) on this year’s Swimming World Cup, a significant portion is paid out in the overall rankings that athletes accrue across all three 2023 tour stops of Berlin, Athens and Budapest.  

Here’s what the top-8 overall male and female swimmers will earn for their final tour points ranking:

Berlin Paydays | Prize Money Athletes Earn at each of the Swimming World Cup 2023 meets

Not only are Qin and McKeown out in front for the men’s and women’s overall tour award, but they each also collected a nice USD 12,000 payday for winning the men’s and women’s meet in Berlin.

By virtue of finishing second in Berlin, Thomas Ceccon and Zhang Yufei pocketed USD 10,000 while Danas Rapsys and Siobhan Haughey each earned USD 8,000 for ranking third in Berlin's men’s and women’s meet scores.

The prize purse goes 20-deep at each Swimming World Cup 2023 tour stop. Here’s the breakdown of prize money by meet:

See You at the Races: Next Stop, Athens