11-time World Champion, Katinka Hosszu, owned the Austin Pro Swim Series pool, and by own I mean the fans belonged to her. There was a huge Hungarian turnout for the Iron Lady. Coach and husband Shane Tusup said he wasn’t surprised because of all the social media leading up to the competition, and…there was one more reason.
Hosszu made headlines coming into the meet after publicly stepping away from her Hungarian swimming federation contract. She said she felt she had to to make a point. Hosszu’s a big proponent of athlete support, and she feels her national governing body has a lot of improvement to make in this area. The stress of the public airing-out was felt by Hosszu at the Pro Swim, but she said her fan-support in Austin took a lot of the negative emotions away.
Hosszu is among a few superstars on the women’s side who can win multiple medals at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. It sounds like she’s focused in the right areas and this could be her first Olympics to shine and finally win some hardware.
Mel prediction for Hosszu:
I say she owns the IMs and challenges for gold in the 200 backstroke. I think she breaks the world record in the 400 IM in Rio, clocking a 4:27.9.
What are your predictions?
You can follow Katinka Hosszu on Twitter here.
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This is a Gold Medal Media production presented by SwimOutlet.com. Host Gold Medal Mel Stewart is a 3-time Olympic medalist and the co-founder of SwimSwam.com, a Swimming News website.
A scary thought: if you add up the best splits in history, you get:
1:01.43 1:06.75 1:15.35 58.68
4:22.21!!!!!!!!!
I think Hosszu will go these splits in Rio, she will be fresh so her back half will be better, but she will still attack the race super early, she will need at least 4.5 seconds lead to get the record, most likely more.
1:01.02
1:06.74 2:07.76
1:17.60 3:25.36
1:02.48 4:27.84
She will have the fastest fly and back splits ever, than have a solid breast leg, and follow it up with a good free leg to get a new world record, she won’t die (though she may throw up) as she will… Read more »
strong but not unbeatable
I happen to think Zhang Lin,s record is strong to not unbeatable. The men rarely swim the 800 free. It,s not an Olympics event. Most distance male swimmers train for the 400 and 1500 free. Katie ledecky,s wr is currently slightly stronger than Zhang Lin,s record of 7:32:12.
Zhang lin split a 3:46:79/3:45:33. Katie ledecky,s 8:06 is approximately a 4:03/4:03 split. For the men,s wr to match ledecky,s wr, a man has to split a 3:43/3:44 which comes to something in the 7:28 range. There are quite a few men that can do that but they hardly train for it. I think the men,s 800 free wr can go lower. The men,s wr is soft compared to ledecky,s wr. I… Read more »
I think Sjostrom could break it in 2 years if she trained for it.
23.73 sprint freestyle by Britta Steffen looks pretty benign but may last several decades, more like Flo Jo’s 10.49 where people keep getting close but never close enough
Which will be the last suit record to go down? On the men’s side Biedermann’s 1.42.00, on the women’s side the next one by Ledecky 🙂
The 800 by Zhang Lin from 2009 Rome. He broke the world record by 6 seconds with a 7:32.12 and split 3:46.79/3:45.33. Absolutely unreal.
Suited women record? Last to go? I Would bet on Zige 200 fly!
Agreed. Still incomprehensible to me. Looking at who has been within three seconds of that time since 2009, it’s a very short list, with the textile WR being about 2.2 seconds off. Biedermann’s 200 free is fast, don’t get me wrong, but more men have broken 1:45 (although none so far the past 12 months) and the TWR is only 1.1 seconds off.
No one in 2:02 2:03 barrier after that, 4 girls in 2:04(one is Zige herself)……
I never thought Ariana Kukors record was the strongest of the tech suit era, Its up there, but Zhang Lins 800 record(a 7:32 low) takes the cake.
Also I don’t believe the Ye will come back for 2016. She had a solid progression until 2012 (4:33 in 2010 at 14 to 4:28 in 2012 at 16), then she dropped of a cliff.
It will take a 4:31 to medal in Rio, if she goes from 4:36 to 4:32 because she was injured, I would have hope, to for gold it will be anywhere from 4:27.9-4:30.1, if she gets there it will be unbelievable.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about how strong the women’s IM world record actually is. No woman had broken 2:10 in textile until Seebohm did so in 2010 with a 2:09.9. Later that year, the textile record was brought down to a 2:09.3 by Ye Shiwen.
During that time, up until Kukor’s record was broken, we all viewed it with an air of invincibility- that it would be THE last suit record to go down, but in retrospect- this record does not look as strong. I point to a few points to illustrate my recent thinking that a 2:10.00 is comparable to a time around 1:58.00 in the men’s version of the race.
1) The Seebohm of 2010 was not the… Read more »
Quickly considering some facts, I agree with Mel’s prediction
1) At Worlds2015 Hosszu won 400 im in 4.30.39 fading in the last 100m. But that was a tired Hosszu, at the last day of an exhausting series of races, even for the Iron Lady.
2) Last week, at Golden Tour in France, Hosszu swam 8.31.4 in the 800 free and, 20 minutes later, 4,32.25 in the 400 im.
We know that Hosszu has an impressive capability to perform at a very high level and upon many races every week in the season, but it seems absolutely credible that, after the taper and in the first day of Olympics, she can swim a 4.27 mid – 4.28 in the 400 im.