Another day, another silver medal for the Dolphins Swim Team after Day 5 of the 2022 World Swimming Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Let’s start with 18-year-old Mollie O’Callaghan who endured a fantastic day once again in the pool. Not only she was too good all along in the lead up to tomorrow night’s Women’s 100m breaststroke final, but she also brought home another silver for the Dolphins with Madi Wilson, Leah Neale & Kiah Melverton in the Women’s 4 x 200m freestyle relay.
Although Neale has the most credit when she briefly led the field at one point going into Stage 3/4 – but Katie Ledecky came in at the same as Melverton where she was proved too good for Team USA that sets up Bella Sims to finish off comfortably in 1st. As Bobby Hurley said on commentary, O’Callaghan will need to build on the early momentum in order to stay ahead. It’s the one weakness she couldn’t nail down China’s Junxuan Yang just before the finish line yesterday in the Women’s 200m Freestyle Final.
Then we look at Jenna Strauch over in the Women’s 200m breaststroke as she never looked out of place – especially when she came 1st in the semis before she ended up being the overall fastest out of the Top 8 for tomorrow night’s final. So does Zac Stubblety-Cook who smashed it in the Men’s 200m breaststroke where he came first as well in both preliminaries that sets up another potential gold to take home.
And shoutout to two other swimmers who couldn’t quite finish at least in the Top 3 but did their best nonetheless; Kaylee McKeown P6 in the Women’s 50m backstroke, as well as 18-year-old Liz Dekkers P5 in the Women’s 200m butterfly on her first International final – with a personal best time of 2:07:81.
Keep an eye on O’Callaghan, Stubblety-Cook and Strauch in the finals tomorrow that would hopefully put the Dolphins back to 2nd with three days left – even though it’s nearly impossible to catch up to their arch-rivals – Team USA.