27 February, 2024
2024 World Swimming Championships in Doha
DAY 1
The Champs kicked off last week with the 10 km Open Water events where athletes had their last chance to qualify for Paris. With Team Speedo Chelsea Gubecka already on the Olympic Team, there were only 3 more spots for the Aussies with the tough selection criteria of having to finish in the top 13 to qualify. After a close to 2-hour battle in both the men’s and women’s events, Australia added 3 more athletes to the Olympic Team making history being the first time Australia have had a full capacity Open Water Team at an Olympics. Chelsea finished with a silver medal in the 5 km race adding to her World Champ Silver last year.
With a mixed bag of athletes attending the pool swimming, Team Speedo ANZ is just a small Team of 4 but on Day 1, they managed to collect 3 medals between them. Erika Fairweather became the first New Zealand Swimmer to ever win a World Championship Gold Medal winning the 400m Freestyle with Elijah Winnington grabbing Silver in a close race in the men’s equivalent. Brianna Throssell was part of the Silver Medal winning 4 x 100m Freestyle relay after qualifying 3rd fastest for tonight’s final of the 100 butterfly.
In global Team Speedo news, with Speedo sponsorship of Chinese swimming it was great to see Zhanie Pan CHN lead off the Men’s 4 x 100m Freestyle relay in a WORLD RECORD. This is the first World Record in Fastskin LZR Valor 2.0 which was good timing alongside the launch of the new arena race suit which we haven’t seen much of yet at these Championships – there is much more Speedo! Adam Peaty GBR goes into tonight’s 100m Breaststroke final as fastest qualifier swimming the best he has since Tokyo. With GBR’s Men’s 4 x 100m Freestyle missing out on a relay spot in Paris at last years’ World Champs due to a disqualification, it meant they had to qualify in Doha which they did comfortably with 3 Team Speedo athletes, Tom Dean GBR, Duncan Scott GBR and Matt Richards GBR.
DAY 2
One of our most decorated relay medallists, Brianna Throssell was agonisingly close to winning her first individual World Championship medal after representing Australia for nearly a decade. Finishing in 4th position is never easy but to see her swimming times which match her best ever will give her confidence for the rest of the season leading into Paris. The event was won by Angelina Kohler GER, one of Speedo’s newest signings.
Elijah Winnington backed up his 400m Silver medal swim advancing to the final of the 200m Freestyle with youngster Kai Taylor just missing out on a finals spot in 9th position. This is Kai’s 2nd Senior International competition so more of an opportunity to gain experience at an elite level, high pressure environment.
Adam Peaty GBR won his first International medal since his break winning bronze in 100m Breaststroke and there were 2 medals for Global Speedo Team Speedo in the women’s 200m Individual Medley with Sydney Pickrem CAN winning silver and Yu Yiting CHN bronze.
DAY 3
Day 3 of the World Champs started off with the hotly contested Men’s 200 free. In a blanket finish Elijah Winnington took 7th place on the day. Korean Hwang Sunwoo wound up with Gold wearing Speedo cap and goggles... There's rumours he might be going full Speedo for Paris so let's wait and see. Silver went to Danas Rapsys who broke the Lithuanian fed deal to wear a Speedo intent 2.0 suit, he is a superstar of Lithuanian swimming so it's great to see him jump over to Speedo and get back on an international podium. This is shaping up to be one of the most exciting events in Paris with so much depth from around the world.
In the Women’s 1500 free it was a Speedo 1-2-3-4 with Team Speedo ANZ friendly Eve Thomas taking 4th - fun fact Eve is legendary swimmer Sarah Hardcastle’s daughter and trains with Dean's squad in Brisbane. Top 3 spots were newly signed distance star Simona Quadrella of Speedo Italy, Li Bingjie of Speedo China and Isabel Gose of Speedo Germany showing the international prowess of Team Speedo there! Speedo Germany is having a blinder of a meet with the new German swimming federation deal unlocking a wave of talented athletes who are snatching medals across multiple events here in Doha.
In the Women’s 100 back, Aussie swimmer Iona Anderson picked up a Silver wearing our Intent 2.0 suit. There’s a few big names missing in this event including our own Kaylee McKeown so things are shaping up for an epic showdown come Paris.
In the men’s 100 back, Team Speedo Spain’s Hugo Gonzalez took silver, he’s been training out of Cal Berkeley and shared the podium with teammate Hunter Armstrong both were coached by my old coach Matt Bowe last year.
In the women’s 100 breast it was a Speedo 1-2 with Chinese swimmer Tang Qianting taking the top spot and Dutch swimmer Tes Schouten taking silver.
Heading into tomorrow Erika Fairweather is looking excellent for the 200 free going into the final ranked fastest, Brianna Throssell took the 5th spot into the final too!
DAY 4
Another medal haul from our Aussie Team Speedo kicking off with Elijah Winnington sneaking the Silver medal rather than the Bronze by 3/100ths of a second in the 800m Freestyle. Distance swimming particularly in the men’s events seem to be getting closer and closer coming down to the wire as to who wins the medals.
On fire Erika Fairweather NZL continued her speedy swimming winning Silver in the 200m Freestyle. In the same race, a very happy Brianna Throssell won her first major individual international medal (Bronze) which had illuded her earlier in the week and she added another Silver in the mixed 4 x 100 medley relay later in the programme.
DAY 5
It was another medal for Brianna Throssell this time as part of the 4x200 free relay where she helped the Aussie team to Bronze. Bree clearly boosted by her individual medal yesterday has been flooded with comments on her most recent social post and is having a fantastic meet with 4 medals to her name so far.
In that same 4x200 free relay 1st and 2nd went to Speedo sponsored nations China and GB and all 8 swimmers were in Speedo for those relay teams. Erika Fairweather led off the Kiwis putting them in first initially with them finishing up with a 5th spot overall- an impressive showing against big swimming countries.
Team Speedo’s Pan Zhanle of China took Gold in the 100 free, he was .73 seconds slower than his World Record on day 1 and still beat the field by 0.2! Imagine being that fast…wow!
It was Gold for Canadian Finlay Knox in the 200 IM in Valor 2.0 causing an upset in a field with good depth from the US, GB and Japan, with Leon Marchand not present there’s sure to be some fireworks in Paris in this event.
And it’s been a while since we’ve seen a Danish swimmer contesting at the international level, Pernille Blume the 2016 Olympic champ probably one of the more recent stars, but Helena Rosendhal Bach is the next wave of talent and took silver in the 200 fly repping the Valor 2.0. A Bosnian swimmer took the bronze!
The socials have really picked up these last couple of days with Aussie photographer Wade Brennan fuelling all of the markets around the world's content and helping Speedo showcase their new Fastskin suits in style!
WEEKEND AND FINAL WRAP UP
It seems to be Brianna Throssell will be coming home today with a heavy bag winning 6 medals in total in Doha. As mentioned last week, Brianna secured her first World Championship Individual medal and winning another 5 in the relays being a key member.
Erika Fairweather also had an outstanding meet collecting Individual Gold, Silver and Bronze in all of her 3 events. Even though there were a few top ranked swimmers missing, Erika took the opportunity practice winning medals which will be skills she can call on in Paris.
Kai Taylor picked up a Silver medal in the mixed 4 x 100 Freestyle leading off in a personal best time putting him in good contention for an individual spot in Paris.
With Elijah Winnington’s 2 medals earlier in the week and Chelsea Gubecka’s Silver in the open water, 13 medals wasn’t a bad medal haul for our 5 Team Speedo Ambassadors in Doha! Let’s see what we can do in Paris with hopefully at least double that on the Team.
Domestic competitions start this week with Victorian Open Champs and NSW Open Champs following in March. In April, swimmers will compete at National Age and Open Champs with the Sydney Open (doubles up as National Uni Champs) in May. Then the Big one…. Olympic Trials are in June in Brisbane where no doubt, we will see a mixed bag of history being made, dreams coming true, and dreams shattered- that is what it is all about.