FINA World Cup Leg 3: Indianapolis

By Reach for the Wall Staff
Lead photo courtesy USA Swimming

Reach for the Wall is traveling to Indianapolis! Marcus Chen, photographer extraordinaire, will be on deck this Thursday (Nov 3) through Saturday (Nov 5) to capture the moments as they happen. If the first two legs of the World Cup are a predictor, he will be very busy! As reported by Fina Correspondent, Andy Ross, there are 11 swimmers that are in the hunt for the ‘triple crown’ in their respective events. Among those vying for the triple crown are American swimmers Beata Nelson (100 & 200 Backstroke, 200 IM), Nic Fink (50, 100 & 200 Breaststroke), and Shaine Casas (100 & 200 Backstroke). Several US swimmers will return to the series having missed one of the first two legs, or will compete for the first time in Indianapolis and will present a stiff challenge to those vying for the triple crown. Notably, each of these swimmers has the opportunity to break up the triple crown in one of their events Ryan Murphy (100 & 200 Backstroke), Tom Shields (50, 100, 200 Butterfly), Luca Urlando (50, 100, 200 Butterfly, 100, 200 Freestyle), Lily King (50, 100, 200 Breaststroke), and  Abbey Weitzeil (50, 100, 200 Freestyle, 50 Backstroke, 50 Butterfly). We will also be on the lookout for Erin Gemmell, who is entered in a full slate of events with the 50, 100, 200 and 400 Freestyle races as well as the 100 Butterfly. We think Erin may have a bit of an advantage over some of her competitors with the 25 meter format of the meet as she’s honed her skills in the neighborhood pools of the MCSL.
Katie Ledecky and Erin Gemmell will lead off the racing Thursday with the 400 Freestyle, however without Canadian Summer McIntosh who won the event last weekend. Summer touched out Katie by a mere .08 and set the World Cup and World Junior record in the event, finishing in 3:52.80. While Summer opted out of the 400, (she’s entered in the 100, 200, 800 Freestyle 50, 200 Butterfly), we hope Katie will feel the energy of the ‘home crowd’ (as summer did last weekend in Toronto) to post a great swim and perhaps surpass the time swum last weekend. Katie is also entered in the 200 and 800 Freestyle (as well as the 400 IM) so she and Summer will push each other in the 200 and 800 Free events (maybe more records?).
Several of the ‘triple crown’ races will be decided on Day 1, with the Women’s 50 Freestyle (Kasia Wasik undefeated), Women’s 100 IM (Beryl Gastaldello, undefeated), Men’s 50 Freestyle (Dylan Carter, undefeated) Men’s 200 Backstroke (Shaine Casas, undefeated), Men’s 400 Freestyle (Matthew Sates, undefeated), Men’s 100 breaststroke (Nic Fink, undefeated), and the Men’s 100 Butterfly (Chad Le Clos, undefeated).

Here’s the entries list for the full 3-day competition:

Where to watch: FINA’s You Tube Channel or USA Swimming Live

Another ‘competition within the competition’ is the prize money awarded to individual swimmers based on points, where swimmers are awarded points for their performances in each event across the series of meets. The scoring breakdown isn’t terribly complicated, but detailed enough that we’ll provide the link and not try to explain it 🙂

World Cup Series Points system

The overall prize purse of this year’s FINA Swimming World Cup is $1,200,000. For each meet, the top 20 male and female athletes will share $224,000 prize money ($112,000 per gender). At the end of the series additional $262,000 per gender, which will be awarded to the top eight men and women athletes, based on their overall ranking.

Here’s the breakdown of prize money awarded after each meet to the top 20 point scorers:

At the conclusion of the series an additional schedule of prize money will be awarded to the swimmers that rank in the top 8 overall, male and female:

The rankings are calculated and posted by FINA on their website: Rankings

Here’s the top 10 Females (After Leg 2):

Top 10 Males (After Leg 2):

Background: The FINA Swimming World Cup is an international series of short course meets organized by FINA, the International Federation for swimming. Since 1988, the FINA Swimming World Cup enables the athletes from all around the world to compete in long or short course pools. The Swimming World Cup includes a series of consecutive meets, in which every swimmer has the opportunity to participate and claim the prize money. 

FINA Swimming World Cup 2022 is composed of three meets in attractive European and North American locations and hosted in 25-meter pools.