2020 International Swimming League – Match 5
- Friday, October 30th: 3-5pmCET/9-11am U.S. Central
- Saturday, October 30th: 12-2pm CET/6-8am U.S. Central
- Duna Arena – Budapest, Hungary
- Short Course Meters (SCM) format
- 2020 ISL Scoring Format
- Full Meet Results (PDF)
- Teams: London Roar/DC Trident/LA Current/Tokyo Frog Kings
Jackpot points and the looming skins races kept match 5 a relatively close race for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, but the London Roar emerged victorious with their 2nd win in as many meets. Going into the skins races, the 1st – 3rd place team scores were separated by about 40 points:
- London Roar – 448.5
- LA Current – 414.5
- Tokyo Frog Kings – 408
- DC Trident – 270
The women’s 50 breast skins extended London Roar’s lead as Alia Atkinson took 1st place in every round and her teammate Annie Lazor made it into round 2, placing 3rd.
The men’s 50 fly skins had the chance to be the great equalizer. London was shut out of the men’s 50 fly skins race after the 1st round, with Tom Shields and Maxime Rooney (LAC), and Takeshi Kawamoto and Kosuke Matsui (TOK) advancing to the next round. Shields’ victory in the final round closed the gap between London and LA Current to about 20 points, with London taking the win.
With this victory, London Roar, still undefeated in regular season matches, has surpassed team Iron and tied with the Cali Condors in overall league standings. However, LA Current has the advantage of 3 matches under their belt and they now lead the ISL in overall league standings.
The Roar overall performed substantially better in their 2nd outing, where they faced a tougher field, than in their first outing, based on times and results. That is due in part ot the return of swimmers like James Guy and Holly Hibbott to the teams lineup, as they arrived late after being quarantined due to a possible coronavirus exposure at home.
The LA Current were also missing a few key contributors, like Andrew Seliskar, that would have made this a race down-to-the-wire.
Only 2 teams have yet to compete in their 2nd match: last year’s defending ISL champion Energy Standard and the Toronto Titans. They both will compete in match 6 starting on Sunday, November 1st.
Current Standings After Meet 5
| Rank | Club | Club Code | Matches Played | Match 1 | Match 2 | Match 3 | Match 4 | Match 5 | Standings Points |
| 1 | LA Current | LAC | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 9 | ||
| =2 | London Roar | LON | 2 | 4 | 4 | 8 | |||
| =2 | Cali Condors | CAC | 2 | 4 | 4 | 8 | |||
| 4 | Iron | IRO | 2 | 3 | 3 | 6 | |||
| 5 | Tokyo Frog Kings | TOK | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 | |||
| 6 | DC Trident | DCT | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||
| =7 | Energy Standard | ENS | 1 | 3 | 3 | ||||
| =7 | NY Breakers | NYB | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | |||
| =9 | Aqua Centurions | AQC | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| =9 | Toronto Titans | TOR | 1 | 2 | 2 |
How Standings Work
At each of the 10 regular season meets, teams will score points relative to how they finish in the meet:
- 1st place – 4 points
- 2nd place – 3 points
- 3rd place – 2 points
- 4th place – 1 point
Unlike in individual races, there are no jackpot points, therefore a team won’t gain extra league standings points for winning a match by a huge margin.
One change from last year’s ISL is that there are no divisions by continent (that we know of.) Last year those continental divisions allowed the top 2 American teams and top 2 European teams to move onto the semifinals. This means that this season, after 10 regular season matches, the top 8 teams overall will move onto the semifinals.
A second change is the addition of 2 new ISL teams (the Toronto Titans and the Tokyo Frog Kings) which brings the total number of competing teams to 10.
Where can we see total team standings?
not for this match… for the season…
Any word on how a tie breaker would be enacted for the semi final? Looking forward in the schedule it seems possible to me that DCT and TOR could both end up with 5 points in the team race for 8th place.
Toronto will have at least 6 points if they beat Centurions tomorrow which is the most possible scenario.
Sure. But what if DC beats Toronto in their match and both teams end up with 6 points? Whats the tie breaker then?
Not a word.
I assume that the tie-breaker would be points scored, but that’s based purely on my amateur-psychology of Konstantin’s love for numbers.
Other best guess is head-to-head.
Imbalanced scoring means that all tie-breakers have huge loopholes in them, so there isn’t any perfect answer.
We don’t know how they will seed teams for the semi-finals either.