What to see at the world green track?

After half a month of competition, the 2025 World Aquatics Championships officially entered its most exciting phase - the swimming event cluster, starting on the evening of July 27.

McIntosh will be the name attracting the most attention at this year's world championship - Photo: Reuters

This year's tournament takes place in Singapore, with the full presence of the most notable stars on the green track such as Katie Ledecky, Summer McIntosh and Léon Marchand continuing the top race.

Ledecky - McIntosh confrontation

One of the highlights of this tournament is the competition between Katie Ledecky (American swimming legend) and Summer McIntosh (18-year-old Canadian swimmer) who has been taking the swimming world by storm for the past year.

Ledecky is one of the greatest female swimmers in history, with 9 Olympic gold medals and 21 world gold medals. As for McIntosh, she is a phenomenon that has taken the swimming world by surprise. A year ago, at the age of 17, the Canadian girl shocked the world by winning 3 gold medals and 1 silver medal in France.

McIntosh has registered a total of 7 individual events at the 2025 world championships, with 4 of them being the events that isolated the miracle at the 2024 Paris Olympics. After 1 year, McIntosh promises to be even more comprehensive, aiming to compete for medals in all the events he participates in.

McIntosh and Ledecky don't face each other often, mainly in the middle distance freestyle - where both are facing competition from some of Australia's strongest swimmers. But they will certainly be two of the brightest stars, competing for the position of "swimming queen" of the current green track. Ledecky is gradually declining as she enters her 30s, but she still maintains her form, winning 2-3 gold medals at the recent Olympics and world championships.

French men's swimming star Léon Marchand is the biggest phenomenon at the Paris Olympics and is expected to shine at the 2025 world championships - Photo: REUTERS

Léon Marchand and the conquest of records

French men's swimming star Léon Marchand was the biggest phenomenon at the Paris Olympics with 4 individual gold medals. At this year's world championships, Marchand surprised everyone by only registering for 2 individual events, the 200m and 400m medley, skipping the 2 Olympic gold medal events, the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke.

Although the plan could still change at the last minute, Marchand has made the reason public to the media. It is to focus on the main goal: to break Ryan Lochte's 200m medley world record (1 minute 54 seconds), which has stood since 2011.

At the Paris Olympics, Marchand was just 0.06 seconds behind that mark. If he succeeds in Singapore, he will be the first to break Lochte's 14-year mark. Currently, Marchand is almost "unrivaled" in mixed track, having consecutively won gold medals in the 200m and 400m mixed events at the 2022, 2023 world championships, and the 2024 Olympics.

According to Rowdy Gaines, Marchand is "the greatest athlete since Michael Phelps," and he is currently coached by Phelps' former coach, Bob Bowman. Marchand's strategy of "dropping quantity and investing in quality" is seen as a reasonable move to bring him into the blue-track legends.

One of the highlights of this tournament is the competition between Katie Ledecky (American swimming legend) and Summer McIntosh (18-year-old Canadian swimmer) - Photo: REUTERS

Who will lead the US men's team after Dressel?

Caeleb Dressel, an American swimmer who has won nine Olympic gold medals and 15 world gold medals, is not present in Singapore. Despite being the same age as Ledecky, Dressel has declined significantly in recent years. At the Paris Olympics, all three medals (two golds and one silver) he won were in team events.

In France last summer, the U.S. men’s team won just one individual gold medal, thanks to Bobby Finke in the 1,500-meter freestyle, their worst finish since 1956. But younger names are emerging, notably 16-year-old Luka Mijatovic, the youngest swimmer to compete at the worlds since Michael Phelps.

At the US nationals, Mijatovic broke the 17-18 age group records in the 200m and 400m freestyle. Another name is Campbell McKean, 18, who just broke the 1 minute mark for the first time in the 100m breaststroke with a time of 58.96 seconds. According to Gaines, young faces like Mijatovic, Thomas Heilman and Luca Urlando will soon replace Dressel as the superstar at the next Olympics, with the breakthrough coming at this year's world championships.

US-Australia race

Besides individual competitions, the world swimming championship continued to witness an extremely attractive competition between the American and Australian swimming teams.

In the 2023 tournament, Australia created an earthquake in the swimming world when it absolutely defeated the US in the number of gold medals - with a score of 13-7. The US swimming world was so humiliated that when reporting on the tournament, an American TV station intentionally used the total number of medals to... change the rankings. In terms of total medals, the US still had a slight advantage with a score of 38-25 over Australia. But of course, according to the overall rankings, the number of gold medals was the deciding factor. This way of reporting made the sports world laugh at the Americans for "not being able to swallow defeat".

At the Paris Olympics, the Americans successfully took revenge by winning 8 gold medals, topping the group, but only 1 more than Australia. This result reflects the extremely fierce competition between the two leading swimming teams in the world today. From absolute dominance, the American swimming team now faces fierce competition from Australia.

With strong female swimmers in their prime like O'Callaghan, Titmus, McKeown..., Australia promises to continue to create an extremely attractive race with the number 1 power in the sports world.

HUY DANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/xem-gi-o-duong-dua-xanh-the-gioi-2025072810071276.htm