That was one of the best World Champs I can remember! Not just because Britain did well (far better than I could have hoped) but thanks to some outstanding WRs and surprise wins. My highlights:
- Ledecky (above) in the 800. A 28.41 final length is suicidal; a 28.41 final length for an 8:07 is just plain ridiculous.
- Jennie Johanssen’s 50 breaststroke win! She seemed as surprised as the rest of us. She nailed her leg of the medley relay too, a 1.05:6 (compared to her previous best of 1.06.7 in the semis of the 100).
- The men’s 4x200 free relay, even though I have only seen the last 75m because it’s not on iPlayer. The fact that GB actually won multiple gold medals in Olympic events for once = extra awesome.
- Hosszu!Smash in the 200IM. It looked like she was aiming to break both of the two ‘unbeatable’ medley records but didn’t quite have enough juice left. It’ll be a different story in Rio, I bet.
- Italy’s obvious delight at their relay medals
- Fu and Liu wailing at each other hysterically at the end of the 50m back, utterly adorable
- Smaller teams getting a dab at the podium, in part thanks to the underperformance of USA (Ledecky aside) and Australia (Seebohm, Larkin and Campbells aside). Argentina! Singapore! Jamaica!
- Old Man Laszlo sticking it to the young'uns!
- Camille Lacourt continuing to be extremely good-looking!
- Commentators trying to remember how to pronounce Kromowidjojo again after Ranomi took a year off!
- A really good effort from the BBC team this year, with much-improved coverage (i.e. some) and some reasonably in-depth analysis.
- HIGH DRAMA re: Sun, it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out
Not everyone had a great champs. The Japanese men really felt the absence of Hagino, and their breaststrokers underperformed. The French women had an absolutely DIRE meet (0 medals, 3 finals). Obviously the team has been affected by Muffat’s death, but the men’s team seemed to manage to channel it into something positive. Rikkie Molle Pedersen’s subpar form at this meet scuppered Denmark’s relay chances, and Ye Shiwen’s ankle (or lack of training due to borking of same) was clearly causing her problems. Missy Franklin’s poor starts cost her dearly at this meet, I hope last year’s back injury hasn’t affected her underwater fly kick irreparably (surely it can’t be due to everyone else being better at using the new backstroke ledge?). I think Missy probably knew she wasn’t back to 100% yet though. The Russians on the other hand were expecting to do a lot better than they did - Vlad’s false start in the 100 summed it up really.
Anyway, lots to be excited about for Rio! I am SO booking that week off work.
ellievsbear
yousharknotpass
annaxmalina
