2020 INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING LEAGUE: MATCH 2
- Sunday, October 18: 6 PM – 8 PM Local Time (12 noon – 2 PM U.S. Eastern, 1 AM- 3 AM J+1 Japan)
- Monday, October 19: 4 PM – 6 PM Local Time (10 AM – 12 PM U.S. Eastern, 11 PM – 1 AM Japan Time)
- Duna Arena – Budapest, Hungary
- Short Course Meters (SCM) Format
- 2020 ISL Scoring Format
- 2020 ISL Prize Money and Bonuses
- How To Watch
- Full Match 2, Day 1 Results
- Match 1 & 2 Results Merged
- Teams: London Roar, DC Trident, Aqua Centurions, Iron
With the first meet of the International Swimming League’s second season out of the way, four new teams are slated to face off for Match 2. As with yesterday, it will be four returning teams from Season 1. London Roar, DC Trident, Aqua Centurions, Iron are in the pool, with London Roar being the only team to have made it to the finals last season, another team pulling off a win at this match would certainly be an upset. A Season 2 upset was proven to be possible yesterday though when Season 1 third-place finishers the Cali Condors defeated reigning league champs Energy Standard in Match 1.
Follow along for live results and analysis for ISL Season 2 Match 2 below:
Recap: Retta Race, Analysis: Ben Dorman/Braden Keith
LANES
- 1 & 2 – DC Trident
- 3 & 4 – London Roar
- 5 & 6 – Iron
- 7 & 8 – Aqua Centurions
START LISTS
WOMEN’S 100 FLY
With 6 rookies in the field, returner Marie Wattel of London Roar picked up the first victory of the day. Wattel took advantage of the jackpot system, taking from the last 3 finishers, scoring 15 points for the Roar.
Her teammate Harriet West took 5th place and 4 points, giving the team a total of 19 points for the event.
This is a massive start for London, with Iron, Aqua and DC only scoring 7, 6 and 5 points, respectively. London needs wins and jackpots where they can get them, as the team was left thinner than expected by the mass-scale defection of Australians from the league.
MEN’S 100 FLY
In the men’s 100 fly the Aqua Centurions answered back following London Roar’s opening victory. Szebasztian Szabo took points from DC Trident’s Giles Smith, giving him a total of 10. Szabo won the 50 fly at all 3 meets he swam last season, but that’s his first career 100 fly win.
Matteo Rivolta followed suit, finishing second with 7 points. London’s Kusch and Vekovishchev scoring a solid 7 points for the Roar.
The Aqua men, who carried the team last year, will have to do so again this year after the team in general, but especially the women, lost a lot of key pieces in the weeks leading up to the ISL. That includes captain Federica Pellegrini who tested positive for coronavirus before departing.
WOMEN’S 200 BACK
This was a massive effort from DC Trident’s Amy Bilquist, upsetting backstroke favorite Katinka Hosszu. In her first career ISL win, Bilquist jackpotted the last 2 finishers, scoring 12 points for Trident.
Kira Toussaint came in second for the Roar and Iron’s Daria Zavina scored 6 points for third.
Kathleen Dawson added to Toussaint’s Roar points, giving the team a total of 12. Hosszu managed to score Iron 4 points, swimming 2:06.86.
MEN’S 200 BACK
The London Roar maintained their lead, going 1-3 in this event. Christian Diener came in first with the only sub-1:50 swim in the field. Jackpotting Basseto and Santi, Diener took 12 points in the event. Luke Greenbank contributed 6 points to the Roar’s victory.
Jacob Pebley of DC was second with 7 points, improving upon his only performance last year in the event, when he finished 3rd. While this is his best event, Pebley didn’t get many opportunities to race it with the New Yor Breakers last year. Pebley’s DC teammate Abrahm Devine was 6th and brought their team points up to 10.
The other two scoring points where were de Deus of Aqua and Toumakrin of Iron, scoring 5 and 4 points, respectively.
WOMEN’S 200 BREAST
Annie Lazor won this been last year for the LA Current and returned as a London Roar transfer to pick up the win today. This swim for Lazor was faster than any time she swam last season, in a season where she got faster at every meet. If she continues that pattern, she might have the best shot this year of knocking off Lilly King of the Cali Condors in this event.
That swim yielded her 15 points and she jackpotted DC’s Tucker, Aqua’s Castiglioni, and Iron’s Hulkko. That, combined with Sydney Pickrem’s 6 points gives the Roar 21 points in the event, for a total of 81 points today, as they continue to build a massive lead even without their Australians.
Galat was second for a total to 7 points for DC, with Carraro and Laukkanen scoring 5 for Aqua and 4 for Iron, respectively. DC, Aqua and Iron each had points stolen.
MEN’S 200 BREAST
Kirill Prigoda and Adam Peaty went 1-2 in the men’s 200 breaststroke. Prigoda, the World Champion and World Record holder in the 200, swam 2:04.60 that was better than he swam during the regular season last year. His stroke is built for long course, and while he didn’t win this race at a single meet last year, the strength of this event is not in the is meet, paving the way for victory.
While the sprinter Peaty in the 200 catches some attention, especially as he had the fastest final 50 of the field (not what would be expected), his time of 2:05.60 was actually slower than the 2:05.14 and 2:04.63 he swam in two swims in this event last season.
Tommy Cope, a recent University of Michigan Grad who was a late addition for the DC Trident, made big on that decision with a 2:05.79. His teammate Ian Finnerty was last in 2:08.61, in spite of being one of the fastest in the league in this event last season. Finnerty’s times bounced around last year, though; in his opener in Indy, he swam 2:12, in his last meet in College Park he swam 2:02.
WOMEN’S 4X100 FREE RELAY
This was the first jackpotting in a relay this season, with London’s faster team taking points from not only their slower team, but also from DC Trident’s second team. This gave the Roar a total of 24 points in the race.
This might be the first purpose-built jackpot-focused relay strategy. With some confidence that they were going to win this really, it didn’t matter if their B relay was jackpotted. After the team lost many of their top sprinters with the Australian defection, they used a bunch of non-sprinters on their B relay and were able to save some swims off their sprinters.
24 points is a significant payout and allows the Roar to maintain their lead today. Team Iron’s 3rd and 5th place finishers totaled 20 points, giving them a second-place finish for the race. Aqua’s teams combined for a total of 14 points, which tied DC’s second-place finish of 14 points.
MEN’S 50 FREE
Lobanovskij took the win for Team Iron here, getting his hand on the wall first with 10 points, having jackpotted Roar’s Leveaux. This was Iron’s first win of the meet.
De Boer added to Iron’s points with a 5th place earning 4 points. Szabo was second for Aqua, picking up 7 points and Miressi contributed 5, giving Aqua 12 total for this event.
This was London’s worst race so far today, with the men going 7-8, with Leveaux’s loss resulting in jackpotting. The Roar only scored 2 points from Vekovishchev’s 7th place.
WOMEN’S 50 FREE
Ranomi Kromowidjojo, who was one of the stars of the league last season, had the biggest jackpot win of the meet so far, topping the women’s 50 free by a relatively comfortable .4 of a second in 23.64. That’s in spite of being on a fairly quick turnaround from the relay.
Her and teammate Melanie Henique went 1-2 for Iron. Last season, Iron’s weakness was in their sprints, so going 1-2 in this woen’s 50 is huge for them.
Aqua’s points were all stolen by Kromowidjojo, and London Roar rookie Anna Hopkin, one of the fastest 50 YARD freestyles in history, was 8th in 25.13. she has been well off her best so far in this ISL debut.
MEN’S 200 IM
German IMer Philip Heintz makes another winner in his ISL debut on Sunday. After sitting just off the hip of Brazilian Santos throughout the first half of the race, Heintz exploded on the back 100 meters to win by almost a full second.
He jackpotted points from the disqualified Abrahm Devine, as the Aqua men continue to lift their team on Sunday.
London did enough to hold serve here, with a 3-4 finish from Vazaios and Duncan Scott, who, over the last year, has continued to grow into this 200 IM from his freestyle history.
WOMEN’S 200 IM
In a stacked field of women’s 200 IM, it came down to the final 25m where Pickrem was able to hold off Iron’s Hosszu and DC’s Andison in order to take first place. Andison was second and reigning Olympic champion in the event Hosszu was 3rd.
Pickrem’s victory gave her 10 points as she jackpotted Aqua’s Bruce. Pickrem’s teammate O’Connor came in 4th with 5 points. DC Trident’s Galat added to Andison’s second-place points, bringing the team up to 11 points. Ugolkova gave Iron another 3 points and Verraszto gave Aqua their only points in the event with 2.
MEN’S 50 BREAST
Contributing to a day of upsets was Team Iron’s Sacki, who took first place over London Roar’s Adam Peaty. Sakci swam the 9th fastest time ever, with a 25.74 for the only sub-26 in the field. Sakci’s victory scored 12 points for Iron by jackpotting teammate Ross Murdoch and DC’s Ian Finnerty.
1-2 finishers in the 200 breast, Prigoda and Peaty went 2-5 in the 50. Peaty’s second-place 7 points and Prigoda’s 5th place 4 points gave them 10 points total for the event. Aqua went 2-4 in the event, allowing them to beat London with a total of 11 points. Losing the event was DC, as Tommy Cop scored 3 points.
WOMEN’S 50 BREAST
World Record holder in this event, Alia Atkinson was the top finisher today, coming in at 29.20. As the fastest in the world, Atkinson was the favorite in the event and went 3-for-3 last season. Her time today was fastest than any of those three 2019 victories. Atkinson picked up 10 points for London, having jackpotted teammate Annie Lazor, who won the 200 breast earlier today.
Despite Atkinson’s victory for London, Team Iron actually won the event having finished 2-4. Hullko and Laukkanen picked up 7 points and 5 points, respectively, totaling 12. This highlights the importance of having two swimmers in the event to pick up points.
Further, Aqua was able to match Roar’s points in this event by finishing 3rd and 5th. DC was the weakest here, going 6-7 for 5 points.
MEN’S 4X100 FREE RELAY
The Aqua Centurions’ men continue to dominate, winning this relay by more than 2 seconds. This was the same story for Aqua last year, when they were last in every meet, the men were great, but the women were a drag.
DC Trident anchor Zach Apple split 45.15 on his team’s final leg, the fastest of the field by a wide margin, to pull his team up from 4th to 2nd in this relay: the same place they had in the women’s team. While the Trident have been trailing most of the meet, their relay finishes show that there’s some potential to be unloaded there.
The only other sub-46 split was from Aqua Anchor Allessandro Miressi in 45.77. The next best split was 46.51 by Duncan Scott – a second slower.
No jackpots in this race, continuing the general trend belied by London punting on their women’s B really.
Speaking of London, in this race, London finished 4th-7th. The team has maintained a lead thanks to some early jackpot swim, but they do have a few issues with depth that they’ll have to clear up when they face a tougher field.
WOMEN’S 50 BACK
Dark horse Linnea Mack produced an all-time best of 26.30 to finish first in the 50 backstroke. Racing a talented field, Mack powered herself to victory and jackpotted Aqua’s Drakou along the way for a total of 10 points. Amy Bilquist helped DC out here, too, contributing 3 points from 6th place.
DC’s 13-point total was matched by London’s Kameneva and Toussaint who weren’t fast enough to win the race individually but combined second and third place points for a total of 23.
Iron’s Zevina was able to escape getting jackpotted in 7th place, scoring 2 points for Iron and her teammate Pilhatsch was 4th with 5 points, giving Iron 7 points total. Aqua lost the event with 4 points coming from fifth place Medeiros.
MEN’S 50 BACK
Pulling off one of the biggest jackpots that we’ve seen over the two matches, Christian Diener raked in a massive 19 points by defeating favorite Guilherme Guido for the win. The two, both on London, took 26 points total in the event and left Iron with 6 points from Basseto in the 3erd place and DC with 5 points from Nikaloaev in 4th.
Guido didn’t lose this race, and only once in the 100 back, at any of his 4 meets last season. Losing to his teammate doesn’t hurt as bad, though he didn’t appear happy with it.
Diener’s swim is the 2nd best in ISL history and a new German Record.
That left half the field jackpotted with zero points: Toumarkin from Iron, Devine from DC and Aqua’s Rivolata and Santi. That was the worst event of the day so far for the Aqua men.
WOMEN’S 400 FREE
When Aqua Centurion freestyle star Federica Pellegrini tested positive for COVID-19 days before this meet, it was unclear if the team would be able to stay strong in the distance freestyle race. Valentine Dumont answered that question today, swimming a best time of 4:00.27 to win the event, jackpot four people and take 19 points. Dumont managed to negative split the race, and take a 4-second hunk off of her previous best en route to a new national record for Belgium.
The performance bodes well for Aqua, should Pellegrini return to racing this season. Had Pellegrini raced this event at her best, ti would have been 10-2 for Aqua, providing a massive point haul or the team.
Iron, London and DC each had one swimmer pick up points in the event. Following Dumont with a 4:01.51 was Iron’s Andrusenko and gave her team 7 points. London’sWillmott and DC’s Demler were third and fourth, respectively picking up 6 and 5 points for their teams.
MEN’S 400 FREE
Zane Grothe of DC was the top finisher in the men’s 400 freestyle, beating Aqua’s Romanchuk and Melo in the back half of the race. Grothe was the only sub-4:40 and was quick enough to jackpot the last 2 finishers: Santos from Iron in 7th and London’s Clogg in 8th.
Grothe’s 12-point victory combines with Stjepanovic’s 4th place 5 points to give DC an event-winning 17 points. Romanchuk and Melo had the lead at the 200 mark and lost it at the end but still picked up a total of 13 points for Aqua together.]
With one scorer each, Iron and London came in 3rd and 4th in the event, respectively. Verraszto gave Iron 4 points from 5th place and Lana gave London 3 from 6th.
WOMEN’S 4X100 MEDLEY RELAY
In the all-important medley relay, London Roar’s women came in hot and raced to victory. Kira Toussaint, Alia Atkinson, Marie Wattel and Maria Kameneva combined to swim a 3:50.27 for the win and jackpotted TEam Iron’s 8th place team, which would wind up getting disqualified. London thus earned 30 points total from the win and the B-team’s 10-point finish.
This season, the winner of the medley relay has the power to pick which stroke the triple point skins race will be. In a post-race interview, Head Coach of Roar Mel Marshall indicated that they would be ‘running the numbers’ to make the best choice for the team. This choice could end up being breaststroke in order to use ace Alia Atkinson. In the individual event today she picked up 10 points which would translate to 30 in the skins.
Second place in the really was DC whose two teams placed 2nd and 5th for a collective 22 points. Iron’s sole point scorer of a team came in 3rd for 12 points and Aqua was last with a total of 10 points.
MEN’S 4X100 MEDLEY RELAY
Following the women’s relay victory, the London Roar men also won the relay event with 30 points. London’s teams came first and third, with the A team of Guido, Peaty, Kusch and Scott racing to a 3:23.18 victory. Both Guido and Peaty were the fastest in their respective strokes. Kusch was the 2nd fastest and Scott was the 3rd fastest.
Faced with the same decision as the women, Roar will decide the stroke of the men’s skins race. While it’s not yet decided, the Roar will likely consider it being swum backstroke, considering their 1-2 finish in the backstroke today. The race included a 4-person jackpotting by Diener for 19 points and Guido picked up 7. Roar’s massive 26-point race would translate to an incredible 78 points for London in the skins.
London’s two teams were joined in the top 4 by Aqua Centurions’ two teams who went 2-4, scoring 14 and 10 points each for 2nd place in the event. Aqua’s Alessandro Miressi was a powerful force on the closing freestyle split, swimming a 46.06 to overtake London’s 3rd place team.
Iron scored 12 points in the event with a 5th and 7th place finish and DC closed it out in 6th and 8th for 8 points. Trident’s Zach Apple had a scorching 45.43 100 free split, helping his team to the 6th place finish.
TEAM SCORES AFTER DAY ONE
- London Roar – 294.0
- Aqua Centurions – 197.0
- Iron – 194.0
- DC Trident – 181.0
awesome 200 breast by Lazor!
I’ve noticed they’re not checking in with the coaches this year. Are the teams still allowed to change their entries during the breaks or are they now fixed at the beginning of the day?
I noticed that too. As far as we know, they can still update their entries.
They need to do something about how unbalanced these teams are. This is just silly.
This match is much weaker than the first. London isn’t that strong but is being made look amazing by how weak the other teams are.
That makes it even worse if anything. There are at most 3 and a half good teams (not sold on LA Current), the rest are terrible and 2 are clearly far ahead at the top (CAC and ES), and if the first match is anything to go by, it might just be CAC.
The way pay works also incentivises the best swimmers to team up and build stronger teams that will help each other maximise prize money.
For anyone who’s interested I recalculated the first match scores using season 1 scoring and CAC still wins so the jackpot times weren’t the deciding factor even if I still think they should be made harder to achieve.
https://pastebin.com/d2fgejw3
Were the other teams in their same positions ?
Yes.
Y’all attacked me for putting Aqua too high in my predictions and look they are coming 2nd!!
Very disappointed in Meirdos though! 26.8 and a 1:00…
Might be in a more difficult block of training compared to others or struggling from time change
Look they are coming last !
amazing how hard it is to watch it outside of streaming, how bad the broadcasting is, the terrible format, if I didn’t love swimming I’d say the sport doesn’t deserve sponsors. How would it hurt ISL to let viewers watch past meets? HOW WOULD IT NOT BENEFT IT?
I know it is rebroadcast in locations outside the US, not sure if it is in the US but replays might be available with CBS all access membership.
yeah, but I mean just post it on youtube
I’m in a Fantasy Swim League and I am the scorekeeper/commissioner. Your format today, where you screenshot the official results for each event, is super helpful to keep our league scoring prompt. Please keep doing this!
Race replays can be found on this channel (titles in Russian): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9lIEBO4Mrdpv46jcBujqmw