The FINA Swimming World Cup 2021 came to a close this weekend with three action-packed days of competition in Kazan, Russia. After the three successful stops in Berlin, Budapest, and Doha, all eyes were on Kazan at the Aquatics Palace when South Africa’s Matthew Sates and Australia’s most-decorated Olympian Emma McKeon were crowned the overall winners.
An impressive group of the world’s best swimmers fiercely competed across the four legs for an overall prize pool of US $1,452,000. The Swimming World Cup 2021 saw a total of 1021 athletes compete (431 women and 590 men) and 57 national federations from five continents represented.
Sates and McKeon topped the men’s and women’s podiums respectively, earning them each US$ 100,000 in overall prize money. Sates finished the World Cup with 227 total points. Less than one point separated American Tom Shields in second place with 224.4 points and Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands in third place with 224.1 points. In the women’s chart, McKeon finished in with 228.3 overall points, followed closely by the Netherlands’ Kira Toussaint who came in second place with 227.4 points. Australian Madison Wilson finished in third place with 209.1 points.
There was no shortage of world records across the four legs of the World Cup. Australian Kyle Chalmers broke the World Record in the Men’s 100m freestyle with a time of 44.84 during the second day of the competition in Kazan. Sates shattered multiple World Junior Records, including Men’s 200m Medley (1:51.45), Men’s 200m Freestyle (1:40.65), and Men’s 400m Freestyle (3:37.92). The United States set a new World Junior Record for Mixed 4×50 Medley Relay (1:41.21).
Breaking World Cup Records were Kira Toussaint in the Women’s 50m Backstroke (25.81), McKeon in the Women’s 100m Freestyle (50.58), and Japan’s Daiya Seto in the Men’s 200m Medley (1:50.66).
All four stops of the 2021 Swimming World Cup served as qualifying events for the FINA World Swimming Championships which will be held in Abu Dhabi, Dubai from 16-21 December 2021.
More information and complete rankings from the Swimming World Cup can be found here:Â https://www.fina.org/competitions/1383/fina-swimming-world-cup-2021/rankings?scoringId=af06470d-9e7b-4a2d-b32a-d4328050bb42
Press release from FINA, images courtesy of FINA
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