2019 INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING LEAGUE – AMERICAN DERBY
- Saturday, November 16 – Sunday, November 17, 2019
- 2:00-4:00 PM Local Time (U.S. Eastern Time)
- Eppley Recreation Center – College Park, MD
- Short Course Meters (SCM) format
- American franchises: Cali Condors, LA Current, DC Trident, New York Breakers
- Preview
- Live Stream (ESPN3)
- Full American Derby Results
The Los Angeles Current knocked off the Cali Condors in a mild upset, forcing a tie for the American league regular-season title, and both teams will represent the U.S. in the ISL final.
Cali was second in both Group A meets, piling up 6 regular season team points. LA was second in one match, but fell to third in their second match, trailing Cali with 5 points. But when LA beat Cali in the American derby, that one-point deficit was evened up, leaving both teams with 9 regular-season points.
The tie-break – if it mattered for any functional reason – would be total team points between the three meets. Cali scored 1405 across the series (425 in Indy, 490.5 in Naples, 489.5 in Washington), while LA scored 1360 (457 in Lewisville, 408 in Budapest, 495 in Washington). That means Cali are the American regular-season champions by 45 points.
That doesn’t carry a lot of weight, though. The top two teams in American standings qualify for the ISL final next month, so Cali and Los Angeles will both make the trip to Vegas for the series finale. And their finish order in that meet will be the biggest determiner of prize money: every swimmer on the league champion team earns $10,000, and the next three teams will earn $5,000, $3,000 and $1,000 per swimmer.
It’s all-but-guaranteed that the London Roar and Energy Standard will represent the European teams, barring any massive upsets in the European derby. Those two teams swept the group meets, and will probably hog the top two spots in Vegas. But Cali and LA will swim-off for the top American spot, as well as $2,000 extra for each swimmer based on whichever team ends up third.
American Regular-Season Final Standings
- Cali Condors – 9 (tiebreak: 1405)
- LA Current – 9 (tiebreak: 1360)
- DC Trient – 6
- New York Breakers – 3
Current European Regular-Season Standings (one meet remaining)
- Energy Standard – 8 (tiebreak: 1014)
- London Roar – 8 (tiebreak: 990)
- Iron – 5 (tiebreak: 827)
- Aqua Centurions – 2 (tiebreak: 612)
The recruiting system is not clear to me. Some of the swimmers were recruited before the rule were fixed. The best swimmers logically want to be in stronger teams so that they reach the final. I do not know what are budgets for the incentives to make the teams even in strength.
For instance, Kromowidjojo is the skins queen so far, she, with little luck, could win four times (skins counted trice). She will sorely missed from the final.
Surprise!
Not that it matters much but that’s a silly way to break a tie given LA Current were in a stronger group. Take London for example, they are obviously the strongest team but have less points than Energy Standard.
I agree. I think this season was all about “putting on 7 good shows.” I think they’ll re-evaluate some of this stuff in the off-season. Konstantin, at his core, is a “numbers guy,” a mathematician. I was a little surprised that they used a ranking system that allowed us to get to both Derby meets with basically nothing up for grabs team-wise, but I think that’s mostly a function of there only being so much you can do with 6 regular season meets.
With 20+ meets next year, there will be more time for ebbs and flows in the standings.