Continental Divide Still Shows To, Hosszu Atop WC Points Standings

With two weeks off from this year’s World Cup Series before competition starts back up on November 2nd and 3rd in Beijing, the same two swimmers still sit atop the Points Tables with just three meets to go.

Kenneth To will return closer to his native Australia in the final three stops with a lead that is narrowing. He currently sits with 110 points, ahead of Trinidad and Tobago’s George Bovell (92) and Japan’s Daiya Seto (81).

With Bovell getting stronger as the series wears on (including having the highest-scoring event, thanks to his 100 IM battles with To, in two of the three European stops), the scoring is far-from out of reach. If Bovell is able to win top points at each of the last three stops, and with the final meet in Singapore receiving double points, he would be guaranteed of a win barring any World Records. That means that both Bovell and To control their own destinies.

Seto has swum very well in a wide range of events, but even with a World Cup Record in Berlin, he wasn’t able to surpass the points earned by Seto or Bovell for that meet. He would need help to win the total, but is comfortably ahead of Russia’s Stanislav Donets for 3rd-place money.

On the women’s side,Katinka Hosszu is still way out in front of everybody else in the field, even though she struggled in Germany. There, she earned just 10 points as the 5th-best swimmer of that stop.

Her teammate Zsu Jakabos could theoretically catch her, but Jakabos didn’t swim that great in Germany either. Though Great Britain’s Sophie Allen is only 5th in the overall rankings, having swum just three meets, if she were to continue on to Asia, she’s got the mos momentum toward catching Hosszu.

Still, it’s hard to see Katinka not scoring at least 10 points in each of the last three meets, which would mean that it would take World Record bonus points for anybody to catch up to her for the $100,000 grand prize.

A lot can change as we move onto the next wing; after weeks of near-solid competition, athletes will have some time to settle into a bit of a training routine before things kick off again in China.

HOW THE SCORING SYSTEM WORKS

At each meet of the World Cup, athletes will be ranked by their single best performance, according to the FINA Points Table (which is a cross-event power points system). The top 10 men and top 10 women receive points for that meet, which go to their overall series score. At the end of the series, the three men and three women with the most combined World Cup Points (not to be confused with FINA points – it doesn’t matter what the margin of FINA points is) will receive the prize money.

Keep in mind that there are bonuses for any World Records set (20), and points for the final meet of the season in Singapore will be doubled, meaning that it would be a challenge for anyone who didn’t swim the final meet to finish in the money. There are 7 total meets in the series, and so plenty of time left to make up ground on the leaders as the meet gets deeper in Stockholm next weekend.

The Prizes

The overall series standings will award prizes as follows to the highest scoring man and woman in the series:

1st – $100,000
2nd – $50,000
3rd – $30,000

Men’s Standings

Women’s Standings