4 Storylines (& Some Bonuses) to Watch at the 3rd World Aquatics World Cup Stop – Budapest

2023 WORLD AQUATICS SWIMMING WORLD CUP – Budapest

• Friday, October 20th – Sunday, October 22nd
• Budapest, Hungary
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• Entries

The third and final leg of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cups will kick off tomorrow, Friday the 20th, in Budapest, Hungary. The Duna Arena will play host after hosting stops of the World Cup in 2018, 2019, and 2021, as well as hosting the 2017 and 2022 World Championships.

While a number of athletes won’t be making the trip from Athens to Budapest, including Maggie MacNeil, Sydney Pickrem, and Claire Weinstein, that doesn’t mean the meet isn’t loaded with talent. Sarah Sjostrom, Michael Andrew, and Siobhan Haughey are all entered, as are prize money leaders Kaylee McKeown and Qin Haiyang.

Several new faces also will make an appearance, chief among them Australia’s Sam Short, Great Britain’s Ben Proud, Canada’s Taylor Ruck, and Belarus’s (competing under the Neutral Independent Athletes banner) Ilya Shymanovich and Anastasiya Shkurdai.

You can view all of the entries here, but we’ve pulled out some of the more interesting storylines below for this meet. Several of these will overlap with those posted in the Berlin Storylines article and the Athens Storylines article. Think of these as the finale of a trilogy.

Unreachable at the top?

I feel like I could just copy and paste last week’s storyline about McKeown and Haiyang’s utter dominance, but I won’t. Partly because I’d miss out on being able to mention that in the process of sweeping the backstroke events for the second weekend in a row, McKeown also rewrote the World Cup record in every final.

The Aussie seems to have an insurmountable lead after having extended her lead over Zhang Yufei in the overall rankings, and no swimmer has yet to be really close to supplanting McKeown. In Budapest, she will see familiar faces in the Canadian duo of Kylie Masse and Ingrid Wilm. At the same time, newcomers Shkurdai and Canadian Ruck enter in the 100 and 200 and will try to put up a fight.

As for Qin, he set no new records in Athens but still managed to keep his streak of sweeping the breaststroke events alive. Like McKeown, Qin seems to have an insurmountable lead, but the threat to the three-peat may have grown stronger. Familiar foes from the past year like Nicolo Martinenghi, Nic Fink, Arno Kamminga, and Adam Peaty seemed to have swam better in Athens, and new faces  Shymanovich and Peter Stevens could make an impact upon the finals of the sprints, especially in the 50 where Shymanovich is seeded just .08 behind Qin.

New faces return in varying form

Naturally, each stop sees a bevy of incoming and outgoing swimmers as their training schedules and life events shape their participation at certain meets. However, a few swimmers that will be making their first appearance stand out from the rest.

First and foremost among them is Kristof Milak. The World Record holder withdrew from the 2023 Fukuoka World Championships, citing mental and physical fatigue. He also missed the first two stops of this tour, only having returned to heavy training last month. However, as reported earlier today, Milak has withdrawn from the meet completely after having initially entered the meet with a lightened program.

Two other swimmers coming into the meet with unknown form are Belarussian Shymanovich and Canadian Ruck. Shymanovich, the world record holder in the 100 breast (SCM), has not swum in a World Aquatics or European meet since 2022. He competed several times in meets held in Russia, but this will mark his first appearance against a field of this caliber.

Ruck, a four-time Olympic medalist, only swam relays at the 2023 World Champs after having to miss the Canadian Trials due to a broken hand. The Canadian is entered in five events: the 50-100-200 free and the 100-200 back. Over the summer, Ruck was uncertain as to whether she would keep her training base at Stanford but had made the decision not to use her remaining eligibility and compete with the collegiate team. Ruck was the 2022 and 2023 NCAA champion in the 200-yard-free.

While Shymanovich and Ruck haven’t posted times or swam up to their past performances recently, one swimmer who is making their first appearance this year has been on fire. Not making the flight with the rest of the Aussie contingent to Berlin, distance star Sam Short will enter Budapest as the clear favorite in the 400 and 1500 free by seed times.  The 2023 World Champ in the 400 has an entry time that is five seconds faster than the #2 swimmer, Kieran Smith, and he is 14 seconds ahead of the field in the 1500. Short could easily take out the World Cup records in both events as they sit at 3:43.91 and 14:51.61. The updated start list appears to show Short as not entering the 1500 and focusing on just the 200 and 400. 

Thrilling finale in the Women’s Breaststrokes

One wouldn’t usually think that losing the World Record holder from the meet would somehow make the event more exciting. Still, with the influx of additions, Ruta Meilutyte’s absence doesn’t seem to diminish these events. After initially not appearing in the entries book, Meilutyte appears as the top seed in the 50 and 100 breaststroke events. If she wins the 50 breast in Budapest, that would make her victorious across all three stops of the circuit, but she faces an even tougher field.

Added to the mix in an already exciting field are newcomers Ida Hulkko, Lisa Mamie, Benedetta Pilato, Mona McSharry, and Lydia Jacoby. All five enter with multiple top 10 seed times and will contest with stalwarts Tes Schouten and Jenna Strauch.

Of particular note, McSharry and Jacoby, who likely will square off at NCAAs this year, will look to steal the top spot in the 100, with Jacoby seeded with  1:05.16 compared to McSharry’s 1:05.55. In the 50, the pair enter behind the former World Record holder Pilato and Meilutyte’s 29.16 World Record time from Fukuoka. In the 200, an event Jacoby has put some focus into, Dutch swimmer Schouten will look to defend her recent World Cup record against the likes of Jacoby, McSharry and the Swiss star, Mamie, who enters as the second seed.

Simpson: Adding medals to his metal music?

After having won his first international medal in Athens (silver in the 100 fly), Australian Cody Simpson will look to one-up that by finishing atop the record board. His fellow silver medalist, Michael Andrew (tying in 51.92), does not appear in the entries for the event, but like in Athens, he may swim events that he has not initially entered.

However, Andrew is not the only one that Simpson needs to worry about. Matt Sates jumped up the overall leaderboard to sit in third after Athens finished .10 ahead of him in that final and claimed gold, a race in which he reportedly fractured his wrist.

Ahead of both Sates and Simpson in the entries are newcomers Noe Ponti and Diogo Ribeiro. Ponti, the reigning Olympic bronze medalist in the 100, and Ribeiro, the silver medalist in the 50 fly from Fukuoka, will add a lot of speed to an already swift field.

In Athens, Simpson qualified 1st in the heats of the 100 free but finished just 6th in the final. If he has hopes of replicating these final appearances, he has work to do. While the 100 fly saw a few additions, the men’s sprints have been massively improved. The Italians show up with a strong contingent led by Alessandro Miressi and Lorenzo Zazzeri, while Ribeiro and hometown hope Nandor Nemeth will add their names into the mix.

Bonus(es)

• The other three-peats: With McKeown and Qin taking most of the attention, several other swimmers have been keeping pace and will look to go three for three in events across the series. Thomas Ceccon in the 100 back, Erika Fairweather in the 400 free, Siobhan Haughey in the 100/200 free, and Zhang Yufei in the 100/200 fly will look to defend their wins from Berlin and Athens.
• Relays: There hasn’t been much interest in relays over the course of the World Cups, but the Men’s 4×100 free appears to be competitive with teams from Australia, Italy, Hungary, and South Africa entered.