2022 FINA WORLD CUP – BERLIN
- Friday, October 21 – Sunday, October 23, 2022
- Europa-Sportpark, Berlin, Germany
- SCM (25 meters)
- Start Times
- Prelims: 8:30 am local / 2:30 am ET
- Finals: 7:00 pm local / 1:00 pm ET
- Meet Central
- Psych Sheet
- Live Results (Omega)
- Live Stream (FINA YouTube)
We saw Chad Le Clos of South Africa tear up the Berlin pool on night one of this FINA World Cup Series and the 30-year-old put on an encore performance to conclude night two.
Yesterday Le Clos crushed a winning 100m fly time of 48.58 to produce the 6th fastest time of his career and best outing in the event since 2020.
24 hours later, ‘Le Clos 2.0’ was back at it, posting a time of 1:49.62 to take the men’s 200m butterfly gold.
Splitting 53.65/55.97, Le Clos roared to the wall in the only sub-1:50 result of the field. His final 25m checked in at 27.61 to keep Swiss ace Noe Ponti behind him and nail the victory. Ponti settled for silver in 1:50.43 while Kuan-Hung Wang of Taipei rounded out the top 3 in 1:51.04.
Le Clos’ performance represents his fastest in 2 years, further adding reinforcement that the now Dirk Lange-trained star is on the right track with Paris 2024 on the horizon.
Last night after his 100m fly win Le Clos said, “I couldn’t have asked for a better start. It was very important for me to get the win tonight. The time wasn’t important; I couldn’t really care about the time. I just wanted to win, bad. I’ve taken a lot of losses lately and I’m done with that now.”
He followed up this evening after 200m fly win by saying, “I think I’ve just changed mindsets. Like I said yesterday, Chad le Clos 2.0. Slowly making the step back to getting back what I feel I deserve.”
“I’m very happy; that’s the best time I’ve done in a long time,” le Clos said of his 1:49.62. “That’s faster than my world champs last year; that would have got me silver. I had the world champ on my left. You always want to race the best in the world.”
“Honestly, I’m not going to play it down: yesterday was a huge moment for me and for my career,” he added. “I don’t want to say it’s been such a devastating two-and-a-half-years, but it has been in my career.
“Yesterday was a huge win mentally for me. It took a huge pressure from me off my shoulders. Not because of anything in particular, just getting a win against a top field with the world champ in it. And 48.5, top-eight in history. I’m looking forward to Melbourne, a stepping stone towards this. It’s always great to race in Berlin. And the fans. There was a lot of fans out tonight. That’s nice.”
Le Clos has had a tumultuous past couple of years with the multi-Olympic medalist dealing with mental health issues and, more recently, a change in his training environment. You can read more about his journey along the comeback trail here.
Great swim, well done Chad and Dirk!
Chad Le Clos – Version 2.0 Release Notes
User requested enhancement: More winning
Bug fixes: Less not winning
Great swims and props to him for splitting the 200 fly how he did. Chad Le Clos 2.0 indeed
this is the second best scm 200 fly article I’ve read today
I hope Dirk Lange makes him finally have is chest, arms and underarms
Shave*
I didn’t notice, as I haven’t been looking *that* closely at videos and photos of him.
nice to see him back healthy and competing. He could’ve easily retired after his 2012 Olympic triumph but stuck around and improved. Really a telltale sign of his character
Tell that to a certain Singaporean swimmer that vanished from relevance after an Olympic victory *cough*
When you have an Olympic triumph, then you can judge how others move forward.
Also, super stony back half, good sign for his 100 fly lc
stony https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/svg/1f5ff.svg