2021 INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING LEAGUE – SEASON 3, MATCH 12 – PLAY-OFFS MATCH 1
- Thursday, November 11th – Friday, November 12th
- 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm local time; 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST
- Pieter van den Hoogenband Zwemstadion, Eindhoven, Netherlands
- Short Course Meters (25m – SCM) Format
- ISL Season 3 Schedules, Start Times, & More
- Teams Competing: Energy Standard, Cali Condors, DC Trident, Iron
- Match 1 Preview
- Omega Live Results
Energy Standard’s Kregor Zirk took nearly a second off of his own Estonian National Record in the men’s 400 freestyle Thursday in Eindhoven, racing in the first session of the 2021 ISL playoffs.
Zirk has experimented with early-speed in this race before, once hand-touching the wall at the 100-meter checkpoint in order to earn the additional 6 points awarded to the leader at the 100-meter turn. Thursday, Zirk once again opted for a hand-touch though he followed it with a flipturn, creating a much smoother turn-around than the last time he hand-touched. Zirk turned in a 51.16 in Eindhoven and unlike his previous races, Zirk held on for the win, garnering a total of 19 points.
Points Breakdown
- 1st place = 9 points
- 1st at 100 meters = 6 points
- Checkpoint Jackpot = 3 points (stolen from Haas and Guy)
- Normal Jackpot = 1 point (stolen from Mora)
In Thursday’s swim, Zirk was out much faster at 100 meters than he was during the 2019 ISL Grand Final in Las Vegas when he set the previous record. Zirk was slower over the middle-200, however, due to this burst of opening speed. His final 100 in Eindhoven was a 55.05, nearly 2 seconds faster than his final 100 in Vegas in 2019. Zirk’s closing speed was necessary to hold off Townley Haas of the Cali Condors who closed in a 26.79 for an overall time of 3:41.36. Despite this, Haas only brought in 7 points for the ‘Dors versus Zirk’s 19 points. The second-highest scorer in the heat was Iron’s Luiz Altamir Melo who finished 4th, but thanks to his early speed at the 100-meter checkpoint was able to add 3 additional points to his haul for a total of 8 points in the race.
Splits Comparison
| Zirk 2021 | Zirk 2019 | |
| 1st 50 | 24.84 | 25.21 |
| 2nd 50 | 26.32 (51.16) | 27.15 (52.36) |
| 3rd 50 | 29.25 | 27.81 |
| 4th 50 | 28.61 (57.86) | 28.04 (55.85) |
| 5th 50 | 28.61 | 28.44 |
| 6th 50 | 28.45 (57.06) | 28.54 (56.98) |
| 7th 50 | 27.94 | 28.60 |
| 8th 50 | 27.11 (55.05) | 28.33 (56.93) |
| Total | 3:41.13 | 3:42.12 |
They should award more points for distance events!
They do. The 400s are worth more points than any other races.
Adding an 800 or 1500 is next-to-impossible. Even if you want to argue that the audience enjoys distance events, it doesn’t fit into the television slot. Where are you going to jam another 20-30 minutes of racing into this schedule?
How do you jackpot someone’s checkpoint but not their regular points? I thought you lost all your points if you were jackpotted? I didn’t realise you could just jackpot checkpoint points and not regular points as well.