The triumvirate of American women Regan Smith, Gretchen Walsh, and Kate Douglass took their first wins on Friday night in Carmel as they start the three week battle for the overall World Cup title.
The American fans showed out on Friday night in Carmel, Indiana in “Swim City USA” as the 2025 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup kicked off three weeks of October racing, and the fans had plenty to cheer about thanks to three of their favorites taking wins on the first night.
It started with American Regan Smith upending hometown favorite Alex Shackell in the 200m butterfly, with Smith breaking the World Cup and the American record at 2:00.28 for the third fastest time in history. Shackell, who trained and went to school at Carmel High School, the location of this event, was second at 2:02.51 to move to eighth all-time.
“I knew that Alex (Shackell) was going to push me on the front half,” Smith said. “She's so fast going out, and I knew the crowd was gonna have great energy for her and I tried to feed off of that, and I am psyched.
“I try not to think that Alex has the advantage. At the beginning of every race, everyone's on an even playing field, and it's just fine. I always get a kick out of racing Alex, she’s great.”
Smith, the reigning silver medalist in this event from the Olympics and the World Championships, took care of business in this event in Summer McIntosh’s stead, while Smith also sat out of the 50m backstroke to focus on this race. McIntosh, her new training partner in Austin, scratched this competition due to illness, but it didn’t even matter as Smith looks to be in fine form these next two weeks as she won race one of a potential triple crown.
“It's been a really, really hard training block so far,” Smith said. “Bob (Bowman) just kind of threw us into things and I'm sure he wanted to impress Summer with all the hard work that we do.
“I wish Summer was here. I know that she is pretty sick right now, so she's resting, but I've had so much fun getting to know her and training with her. She would have been lights out tonight, so I'm hoping that I'll get the opportunity to have a good 200m fly with her sometime soon.”
Smith has long been one of the most consistent forces in world swimming, and she will be tough to beat in the butterfly and backstroke races this month.
The Virginia duo of Gretchen Walsh and Kate Douglass will be favorites alongside Smith to compete for the overall World Cup crown these next two weeks. Walsh broke the World Cup record to win the 100m IM at 55.91 over Douglass at 56.34, the latter’s lifetime best, while Walsh was off her own world record of 55.11, but faster than the World Cup record of 56.51 by Katinka Hosszu from 2017.
“It feels kind of like a relief,” Walsh said. “I don't really expect to be so nervous going into the event, but there's some really good competition here. I'm excited to be pushed in this new environment of professional swimming.”
Walsh is swimming in her first career World Cup after she won seven gold medals at last year’s World Short Course Championships with 11 world records total. Walsh is looking to be in good shape to chase more records in 2025 with a $10,000 world record bonus on the line as well as a $10,000 triple crown bonus in play for Toronto in two weeks.
“I feel like I hold myself to a really high standard after the short course world championships in Budapest, I'm constantly reminiscing on when I was handed those $25,000 checks,” Walsh said. “But being here, I just want to try to be at a place where I'm happy, given the lack of training base I have right now. It's been a good month and a half of training, but I wish I had a little bit more under my belt. I'm just trying to be at a place that I'm happy with. I have such good people to race against, and to push me to where I should be.”
Douglass’s win from the day came in the 200m breaststroke at 2:13.97, the third fastest swim of all-time as she is still the only woman to swim inside 2:14 in the event. Douglass is the overall World Cup champion from last year, cashing in on $184,000 across the three week Asia trip, and is definitely favored to do it again in 2025 across Carmel, Westmont, and Toronto, staying closer to home.
“It's super nice that we're not dealing with jet lag like we were last year,” Douglass said. “This year it's great that there's so many Americans swimming - there's just a huge group of swimmers from the U.S National team that are here. I think that's fun that we all get to compete on our own here. Not all of our coaches and teams are here, but we have each other, so that’s fun.
“It is also definitely exciting to hear the cheers from the people in the stands, especially for all the U.S. swimmers. They cheer extra loud for us, and so that's very exciting. I think it's awesome that there's all these young girls up there and they're screaming our names. I think it's super cute that they came to watch us compete against the rest of the world.”
Douglass, Walsh, and Smith are three of the most versatile swimmers in the world, and it’s going to be an exciting battle the next three weeks to see who comes out on top between them with the American fans cheering them on this weekend and next in Chicago.
The other women’s overall favorite could be Australia’s Kaylee McKeown, who won the 50m backstroke tonight in Carmel at 25.42, the seventh fastest performance in history and just off her 25.36 from her one World Cup swim last year.
“The 50 is always hard,” McKeown said. “There's been a bit of jet lag that I am still adjusting to. In Australia it's already tomorrow. So a lot of Australians are having a bit of a rough time sleeping, but it's good practice heading into the next Olympic cycle in Los Angeles.
McKeown hasn’t been to the United States since she was 12 when she was watching her sister Taylor swim at the 2013 US Open in California.
“I don't have a lot of memory of what America is like, so I'm just soaking in the atmosphere, taking in the environment and all the things that you guys do over here. It's been really, really nice. It's definitely different, but it's like being at home because everything's comfortable. I could not ask for anything more.”
McKeown will go head to head with Smith throughout the month in the backstroke races, and McKeown has won that matchup every time they’ve raced head to head in major finals for the last six years. McKeown is one of the best racers in the world and will definitely factor into the overall title chase.
The men’s overall race will be an intriguing one as well, as the training mates out of Texas, Hubert Kos and Leon Marchand, went 1-2 in the 200m backstroke in the best race of the night, with Kos swimming the seventh fastest time in history at 1:46.84 ahead of Marchand at 1:47.68. Kos, the Olympic and World champion, is one of the most versatile swimmers on the tour as he got a good push from French superstar Marchand, who will not race in the other two World Cup stops to compete for the overall crown after he won that title in 2024.
Kos will certainly factor into the points system in the backstroke, butterfly, and IM races as he got his week started with a win in his best event.
“My swim tonight shocked me,” Kos said. “I don't know what shocked me more. My swim or Leon’s swim. I think they were equally, equally shocking because I didn't expect to go that fast, especially only being back like two or three weeks. I am really happy with how the night went.”
Kos also won ahead of his Texas teammate Shaine Casas in the 200m backstroke as he won the 100m IM at 50.86. Casas is another of the most versatile swimmers in the entire world, taking down the likes of Switzerland’s Noe Ponti (51.13) in that race.
“I don’t have many expectations, especially right now,” Casas said. “I know where the Texas group is at and I don't think many people have too high of expectation for their first swim at their first swimming world cup or at a major type of meet. So I think it was a great start. I swam one of the faster times here, and I definitely want to be a bit quicker towards the end. That's the goal, at least.”
Casas had a huge breakthrough swim this summer in the 200m IM when he won silver at the World Aquatics Championships. Casas will also take aim at Marchand’s world record in the 200m IM this week after he was the World Short Course champ in that event last year.
Ponti, last year’s World Cup overall runner-up, won the 100m butterfly at 48.53 to collect his first win on the tour. Ponti will be looking to upgrade to the overall World Cup crown in 2025 as he will be extremely tough to beat in the 50m butterfly on Sunday, as well as in the 100m IM when he lines up against Casas again next week.
Ponti did miss his own world record in the 100m butterfly but he was able to take down the likes of Canada’s Ilya Kharun (49.02) and South Africa’s Chad Le Clos (49.57) in the process as he remains untouchable in short course meters.
“The 100m fly was a little bit slower than last year, the 100m IM as well,” Ponti said. “But it’s in the moment, and it's a different kind of training. So, yeah, I'm excited for the next world cup races in Carmel and also the next world cup stops. I feel a different kind of motivation. Perhaps last year I wanted it more, maybe. I was coming from a challenging Olympic Games.”
Le Clos, age 33, won his career 227th Swimming World Cup medal, dating all the way back to his World Cup debut in 2009.
Australia’s Lani Pallister, coming off a career summer at the World Championships, won her first race of the weekend in the 400m freestyle at 3:54.38, the 10th fastest swim in history as she was just off her 3:53 best time from last year, swimming comfortably ahead of New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather (3:58.83) and Caitlin Deans (4:00.93).
It’s Pallister’s first trip to the United States since she competed as a junior at the 2017 World Junior Championships down the road in downtown Indianapolis.
“We're not tapered, I'm still swimming at a pretty high volume in training,” Pallister said. “I honestly wanted to be as close to my best time as possible. I think I'm only, like, 3:53.7 from December last year in a full taper, so 3:54 off the back of training isn’t bad.
“I think it's more just about getting out racing and getting used to the States and the differences between here and Australia in the lead up to the LA28 Olympics.”
The men’s 400m freestyle somewhat surprisingly went the way of American Carson Foster at 3:37.80, swimming a well paced race to take down Worlds silver medalist Sam Short (3:38.15) and Marchand (3:38.25), swimming from an earlier heat. Fellow American Kieran Smith was leading that 400m freestyle through 350 meters, but faded to fourth overall at 3:38.66.
It was a big moment for Foster, who had a disappointing showing at the World Championships in Singapore, scratching out of the finals of the 200m IM and withdrawing completely from the 400m IM after a freak ankle injury.
“This summer was tough,” Foster said. “I definitely struggled more this fall mentally than I have in the past. It's hard to work 11, nearly 12 months for something, and then you get to the part where you've been training for and it just gets taken from you. So that was hard.
“I hit my short course worlds times from last year, which I didn't think I swam very well. I don't really feel like I am the best judge of how good it was. I was just going out with no expectations.”
The Americans also got a 1-2 finish in the men’s 50m freestyle with Chris Guiliano (20.83) winning ahead of Worlds silver medalist Jack Alexy (20.88) while Kharun (20.89) was third.
“It definitely feels good to get that one under my belt,” Guiliano said. “I swim against them all the time, so I definitely get used to it. It's always a great opportunity to go out there and race against those guys.”
Poland’s Kasia Wasick won the 50m freestyle at 23.29 for her seventh career World Cup win in the event, while Caspar Corbeau of the Netherlands won the 100m breaststroke at 56.67.
The World Aquatics Swimming World Cup will continue tomorrow morning with the heats at 10:00 a.m. and finals to follow at 6:00 p.m.
Contributing: Gregory Eggert