It’s Summer Time: Analyzing the Picks for the 2023 World Champs SwimSwam Pick’Em Contest

2023 WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

• July 23 to 30, 2023
• Fukuoka, Japan
• Marine Messe Fukuoka
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Entry Book
• Live Results (Omega)

SWIMSWAM PICK’EM CONTEST (Entries close at 7:00pm Eastern Time on Saturday, July 22)

The 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka are set to kick off in just a few short hours. That being said, the SwimSwam Pick’Em Contest will be closing shortly. As we approach the entry deadline, let’s take a look at the trends in our contestants’ responses.

The first trend I noticed in the picks is that those of you who have entered in the contest are feeling high, very high, on Canadian 16-year-old Summer McIntosh. Now, that doesn’t come as a surprise, since it’s hard to bet against her at this point, but nonetheless, McIntosh is facing some stiff competition in essentially all of her races.

The women’s 400 IM is the event in which I would personally say McIntosh is the clear cut favorite and overwhelmingly likely to win gold. She won the event last year, she’s the World Record holder, and she’s the only swimmer in the field who has been under 4:30, and McIntosh has been way under 4:30. I didn’t even feel like this one warranted a screenshot of the summary, so I’ll just tell you: 96.4% of contestants picked McIntosh to win the event.

What piqued my interest as I examined the summary was that the contestants have overwhelmingly picked McIntosh win the women’s 400 free on the first night of the meet. McIntosh being the favorite isn’t surprising at all, since she did set the World Record in the event a few months ago, however, 76.5% of entrants picking her is a bigger slice of the pie than I would have guessed.

Moving on, in McIntosh’s schedule, our entrants have picked her as the favorite for the women’s 200 free as well. The reason that pick intrigues me is because that’s one of the individual events on her schedule where she isn’t the top seed. Australia’s Mollie O’Callaghan is the fastest swimmer in the world in the event so far this year, having swum a 1:53.83 at the Aussie Trials in June. Of note, fellow Aussie Ariarne Titmus also boasts the fastest personal best in the field, so the confidence in McIntosh by our contestants is really put on display here as well. 46.3% of entrants selected McIntosh to win the event, while 32.3% picked Titmus.

Rounding out McIntosh’ individuals, the Pick’Em Contest entrants are once again choosing to roll with her in the women’s 200 fly. Despite the breakout of American Regan Smith in the event this summer, you lot have shown that you strongly believe McIntosh will be standing on top of the podium here as well. Once again, she’s not the top seed here, as Smith is the fastest swimmer in the World this year with a 2:03.87, which is nearly a second ahead of McIntosh’s personal best of 2:04.70. In my personal opinion (for whatever it’s worth), this is the race McIntosh is least likely to win, only because Smith is also on an absolute tear this year.

Changing gears, the entrants are also feeling very good about American Lilly King‘s prospects in the women’s breaststroke events. Despite her off performances at last summer’s World Championships, the Pick’Em Contestants are riding with King, picking her by considerable margins to win both the women’s 100 breast and 200 breast.

In the 100 breast, a whopping 69.6% of respondents selected King to win gold, while 27.4% chose defending Olympic Champion Lydia Jacoby to win.

Perhaps even more interestingly, 44.5% picked King to win the women’s 200 breast as well. King did manage to win the event last year, though the overall times in that final were a bit slow all around. Nonetheless, King is the fastest swimmer in the world this year in the event of those who are competing in these World Championships. Russia’s Evgeniia Chikunova is the fastest swimmer in the world this year, having set the World Record with a 2:17.55 in April, however, she will not be competing in Fukuoka.

Part of the reason I found the faith in King in the 200 breast to be of interest is because the contestants are clearly feeling good about fellow American Kate Douglass as well. Entrants have overwhelmingly selected Douglass to win the women’s 200 IM this week, as 79.7% picked her to do so. That’s the first event on the list, so it was the first summary I saw. Because of that, I was anticipating that the contestants would also like Douglass in the 200 breast, however, they still opted to roll with King there.

I’ve already mentioned her, but another swimmer who the contestants are feeling good about is American Regan Smith. Though Australia’s Kaylee McKeown now holds the World Records in both the women’s 100 back and 200 back, Smith was selected to win gold in both events. They aren’t unreasonable picks at all, since Smith’s decision to move and begin training under coach Bob Bowman is clearly paying dividends, however, even so, McKeown has been faster than Smith in both events this year alone.

Moving on to some men’s events, one swimmer the entrants don’t appear to have much faith in is Ahmed Hafnaoui in the men’s 400 free. The defending Olympic Champion in the event, only 3.2% selected Hafnaoui to win gold here in Fukuoka. That wouldn’t be that weird, except he was chosen to finish in the other places by similar percentages. Just 4.9% picked Hafnaoui for silver, while 5.4% picked him for bronze, and 6.7% said he’d finish 4th.

Next up, though we’ve built up the men’s 400 IM as a big battle between France’s Leon Marchand and American Carson Foster, participants have almost unanimously chosen Marchand to win the event. 96.8% believe Marchand will take the event, while Foster is the overwhelming choice for second.

In another Adam Peaty-less field, contestants have chosen American Nic Fink as the most likely winner of the men’s 100 breast. It’s close, with Fink earning just a bit more of the pie than Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi, however, Fink is the favorite according to you guys.