Eight swimmers met members of the media at the introductory press conference on the eve of the swimming programme at the 22nd edition of the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.
The post-Olympic year always brings about a host of new changes to athletes’ lives. After a three-year buildup, the Paris Games delivered tremendous results - fantastic racing, exuberant crowds and unforgettable moments and reactions.
France’s Leon Marchand rode that wave during the nine-day programme in the French capital, winning four individual gold medals. The French people went ballistic each time he swam as he entered into super-stardom following the Games.
This year, at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, Marchand is taking on an abbreviated program, only racing the 200m and 400m IM, two events he won at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships, the latter in which he broke the world record that belonged to Michael Phelps for 21 years.
“I would say it’s more of a transition year for me after the Olympics, which was a big goal for me and a lot of athletes, mostly French,” Marchand told reporters Saturday morning at the newly built World Championships Arena. “I would say it’s getting back into the game. I had a pretty good year of relaxing, getting back into it, but taking the time for it. I’m excited for worlds, I want PBs in every single one of my races. Of course, I want to break world records in the next few years, I don’t know when that’s going to happen. But I still have a lot to do in the swimming world.”
Marchand, who is one of the star attractions this week in Singapore, seeing his face plastered on promotional posters around the city, commented on how his life has changed since a dream Olympics last year.
“My life in France changed a lot,” Marchand told reporters. “I have to plan things. I can’t just go on my own in the city and get some bread. I have to do different things before, after, and during. It’s been a lot to handle at first. I also enjoy the positives that happened to me after that.
“I’m getting used to it, I know how to handle it better, I know how to say no better. It’s been different, but I’m also learning a lot. It’s been good. I got a lot more peace when I travel out of France. I was able to train better and just do my own things like usual.”
Highs and Lows of post-Olympic year
For Germany’s Florian Wellbrock, the Paris Olympics weren’t as magical. After entering the Games as the gold medal favorite in the Open Water 10km, Wellbrock finished eighth in the River Seine.
“We didn’t achieve what we trained for,” Wellbrock said. “I had a really long break after Paris, eight weeks. I had thoughts in my mind about retirement, and wasn’t sure to come back and go into the water again. But after eight weeks of recovering, I had the feeling that I wanted to be back in the water, with my group, with my coach. We decided, ok, let’s try and go all the way to LA 2028. I did a lot of work with a new mental coach, and I think I found a good way to be back. It’s so nice to be back on top of the podium.”
Last week, Wellbrock dominated the Open Water field, winning four of the possible four gold medals on the programme, winning the 10km, 5km, the inaugural 3km knockout sprint, and anchoring the 4x1500m mixed relay team to the top of the world.
Wellbrock will only race one pool event in Singapore - the 1500m, which kicks off on Saturday, August 2. Wellbrock has the fastest time in the world this year ahead of the likes of world record holder Bobby Finke, defending champion Daniel Wiffen, and his own training partner Sven Schwarz.
Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi is coming into this week’s Worlds as the reigning Olympic champion in the 100m breaststroke. Like Wellbrock, he took an extended break outside of the pool after Paris and enters these championships as one of the favorites for the 50m and 100m breaststroke.
“It was so tough after Paris,” Martinenghi said. “It was like a dream come true but it was also a lot of difficulty in my mind. I stopped, not for eight weeks, but for five months. I decided to change my life. I moved to Verona…new coach, new life, new people. It helped me to discover again how to enjoy my life, the swimming world. Now I can say that I’m ready to come back to push again. I feel good.
“When you go out there to win a gold medal, you feel like no one can touch you or beat you, but it’s not like that. It’s just a medal. You have to push again, to push and start to work hard and win again. It’s difficult, but it’s our job. I’m here to do it again.”
New Territory ahead of Los Angeles
Martinenghi won silver in both the 50m and 100m breaststroke at the World Championships in Doha last year and will certainly be a favorite come the Los Angeles Olympics when the 50m breaststroke will make its Olympic debut.
“I’m happy about swimming the 50m,” Martinenghi said. “Nothing’s changed. 50 is another race to prepare for. If it means for me to prepare more in the 50? No, I don’t think so. I’ll continue to do my job. My job is to swim from A to B in the least time possible. I’m really happy about it. That’s a new goal. You can be a two-time Olympic champion if you’re a sprinter. Nothing’s changed.”
Switzerland’s Noe Ponti, who dominated the latter half of 2024 with world records in the 50m and 100m butterfly at the World Short Course Championships in December, shared a similar sentiment to Martinenghi about the opportunity to swim the 50m butterfly at the Olympics in three years.
“50m means one more chance to win at the Olympics,” Ponti said. “I don’t know if I’ll swim the 200m again, but who knows? LA… potentially three races where I can aim for a medal, but that doesn’t mean that my training has changed or anything. I’ve never trained for the 50m, so the focus has never been on the 50m for me. But I’ve always been able to swim a fast 50 metres. I’ll keep training for the 100, maybe the 200. The 50 will come with it. The 50s will gain more respect from people, from press, from everybody. I’m happy about it, and it’s going to be fun.”
Australia’s Cameron McEvoy, who won the 50m freestyle at last year’s Olympics, is the heavy favorite to win the World title on Saturday, August 2, but with that being his only race, he has another week before he will get on the blocks and race in front of the entire world.
“I’ve got my regular training cycle that I’m tapering down going into that race,” McEvoy said. “I’ve got two suited-up sessions where I try to replicate what I want to do. Outside of that, it’s just relaxing, letting the nervous system come up, try not to get in my own way. Letting it go.”
McEvoy recently welcomed his first child, Hartley, into the world, as he is racing in his first competition as a father.
“It happened so fast,” McEvoy said. “It was the blurriest yet clearest moment of my life. It’s really special. It’s definitely changed my perspective in the grand scheme of things. I’m also learning that you can hold that, but still maintain and go after your passions as well. I’ll continue to learn how to do that as we go forward. It’s been wild, I’m still processing a lot of the changes that come with it, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Racing the World’s Best
One of the premier races of the week will be the women’s 800m freestyle with the impending matchup between the two fastest to ever swim the event - American Katie Ledecky and Canadian Summer McIntosh.
Ledecky has been literally unbeatable in the event at major meets since 2012, but is facing perhaps the toughest test of her career in McIntosh, who got closer to Ledecky’s world record in June than anyone has before.
Australia’s Lani Pallister is ranked third in the world behind them, some six seconds behind Ledecky, but her time from the Australian Swimming Trials in June was faster than what Ledecky swam to win the Olympics last year.
Pallister is having a career year, but so is Ledecky and so is McIntosh, but that makes the prospect of those three racing in the 400m freestyle tomorrow and the 800m on Saturday, August 2, that much more exciting.
“Katie’s done incredible things for the sport and arguably she’s the greatest distance swimmer of all time,” Pallister said. “We have someone like Summer making waves in her events as well. For me, this is a meet where I want to see the training I’ve done with Dean (Boxall), being in a new programme. I just want to put together a time and race that I’m happy with. They’re both so close to the world record. There are goals and race plans in place, but it’ll be really cool to see from the outside as well as being in it.”
Japan’s Ichika Kajimoto is also entered in the 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle events this week in Singapore, as she already won two medals in open water swimming last week, claiming gold in the 3km knockout sprint and bronze in the 5km. It was the first open water swimming medal for a Japanese person, which has reached her home nation with delight.
She is ranked as high as 11th in the 800m and 1500m amongst those qualified for the championships.
“Right after finishing the open water swimming (OWS) events, and with hardly any time to pause, I moved straight into pool swimming,” Kajimoto said. “Winning medals in OWS events gave me a huge boost in confidence. There’s absolutely no downside to it. I want to carry that confidence from winning medals in OWS into my pool races as well.”
One of the other premiere events this week is the men’s 100m backstroke. Hungary’s Hubert Kos, who is the reigning Olympic champion in the 200m backstroke, is ranked fifth in the world this year at 52.24, which would have won silver at last year’s Olympics.
“I really want to do well in that event because I don’t want to be confined to one single event,” Kos said at the press conference. “I want this to be the championships where I can show that I've been working on it a lot. The past couple months, everybody’s just sort of become a monster in that event. So we probably got like eight or nine people under 52.2 or something, which is unbelievable.”
Last year in Paris, Ryan Murphy won bronze at 52.39, which six men have swum faster than this year, including Pieter Coetze’s 51.99 from a few days ago at the World University Games in Germany.
“That might not even be enough to make the final this year,” Kos said of last year’s bronze medal winning time. “So I’m really excited to do it, and I want to show in a field like that, where everybody’s really strong and everybody’s doing their best that I can still hold myself with these sprinters compared to myself.”