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Energy Standard were crowned the first International Swimming League champions after they overturned a 14.5-point deficit to London Roar going into the final skins event where Florent Manaudou ensured they clinched the trophy in Las Vegas.
Caeleb Dressel won the skins - freestyle eliminators which culminate in a head-to-head between two swimmers – but Energy won the title thanks to Manaudou reaching the final and team-mate Ben Proud making round two while neither London Roar swimmer advanced from the first round.
Dressel, whose Cali Condors team had seemed destined to fight it out for the title, won meet MVP with 121pts after five individual victories over two days with Sarah Sjostrom, of Energy Standard, topping the rankings for Season MVP and the USD 50,000 bonus with 243.5pts.
Sjostrom won the women’s skins, beating London Roar’s Cate Campbell in the final, and there were two final-day victories for Daiya Seto who added 200IM and 200m butterfly gold to his opening-day world-record 400IM as the Japanese swimmer had a marked influence on the destination of the title on his ISL debut.
The entire Energy Squad ended up in the water and head coach James Gibson paid tribute to his team, saying: “It is absolutely fantastic. It is probably one of the most emotional swimming competitions I have ever been involved in.
“The Olympics and World Championships are obviously special but this is a totally different feeling.
“When you have a team, it’s a different type of emotion, it’s a lot more intense. The pressure is a lot higher.
“There was huge expectation on us coming into the meet. I say to my team ‘you want to be where expectation is high – that means you are good’. And we had a lot of pressure on us to come through because we knew we were a strong team.”
The former 50m breaststroke world champion believes their recruitment strategy where they focused on relays and the skins was behind their success.
“If you look on paper we were not the strongest team,” he said. “California were excellent, London were superb. Where we won the meet was because we were the best team.
“We won when it mattered, the triple points, the skins and the relays and we saw that all the way through. In Naples we were 40 points behind and we came back and won: today we were 37pts behind at one point and we won.
“The guys are heroes, super-human beings and very resilient. All credit to the athletes really because they had to deal with a lot of pressure. Some of them were not swimming their best at this meet and had to redrag. That is why good athletes are great – they can drag performances out.
“Sarah is not happy with some of her swims but then she comes out and wins the skins quite convincingly.
“So, the performances all come down to the athletes, it’s nothing to do with us. We pick the team but the guys had to buy into our vision, buy into our belief and came on a journey with us.”
Sjostrom had come into the final leading the MVP rankings but insisted that came second to focusing on her squad.
She said: “The main thing was to take points for my team all the way.
“MVP is a big moment of course, I am very, very happy that I was able to win this final also.
“I was racing some of my best competitors in almost every race I have so I am not used to that type of racing that often – it was a very good experience for me to race with that much pressure so often.
“I felt like I was swimming world champs four times this season. So that is very exciting. I am very, very happy that we finally get started with this competition and to win was outstanding.”
It was a sweet moment for Manaudou who had seen Dressel take his 50m freestyle world record on Friday but now he was the man who guaranteed the silverware for Energy.
The Frenchman said: “Yesterday was a little bit difficult: it is always difficult when you lose a world record but they are meant to be beaten I think. And I have another one so maybe it will be beaten next year.
“I prefer to be the hunter and now I feel much better because when I am second I just feel better.
“He is the fastest swimmer on the planet and I will just try to catch him.”
The day began with Energy Standard 13.5pts ahead of Cali Condors with London Roar third, 17 points adrift of their European rivals.
However, whatever Roar head coach Mel Marshall said to her team had a serious effect as they won six events to go into the final break with a 21.5pt lead over Energy Standard.
Mireia Belmonte claimed a significant second place for Roar in the women’s 200m butterfly before they placed fifth and sixth in the men’s equivalent.
However, they still had a 21.5pt lead going into the women’s skins which was then reduced by seven points ahead of the men’s race and the rest is history.
For further text, images, video and information go to http://apmultimedianewsroom.com/multimedia-newsroom/partners/international-swimming-league
About the ISL: The International Swimming League is a global professional swimming competition launching in 2019 with teams in both Europe (Italy-based Aqua Centurions, France-based Energy Standard, Hungary-based Iron, and London Roar) and the United States (Cali Condors, DC Trident, LA Current, NY Breakers). The inaugural season will include matches in Indianapolis IN, Naples ITA, Lewisville TX, Budapest HUN, College Park MD, London GBR, and the championship finale at the 12,000-seat Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, NV. The ISL aims to create groundbreaking projects, in both form and content, exploring the full potential of competitive swimming while securing sustainable commercial growth in the sport.
Media Contact: James Mulligan (james.mulligan@isl.global)
21 December 2019
