Sweden’s Sarah Sjöström and South Africa’s Chad le Clos have concluded an epic 2017 FINA World Cup by being crowned champions in front of a packed house at the OCBC Aquatic Center in Singapore on Sunday.

Both were runaway leaders in the overall point score since cluster one in Europe. Sjöström completed the clean sweep as the winner of all three clusters, while le Clos won two out of three, with Russian short course star Vlad Morozov narrowly defeating him to take out cluster three.

Overall Point Score Winners

Men

1. 402 — Chad le Clos (RSA)
2. 273 — Vlad Morozov (RUS)
3. 228 — Kirill Prigoda (RUS)

Women

1. 578 — Sarah Sjöström (SWE)
2. 446 — Katinka Hosszu (HUN)
3. 272 — Ranomi Kromowidjojo (NED)

Overall Series Bonus Prizes

1. $150,000
2. $100,000
3. $50,000

Day One Finals Report

As the overall points leaders, Sjöström and le Clos had a mortgage on the USD $150,000 winners checks, but le Clos had a battle on his hands with Morozov to take out the final cluster on Saturday. 

Morozov was the star of night one after grabbing two individual gold medals and again scaring his own world record in the 100m IM. Out in 23.00, Morozov used his breaststroke to gap the field and touch in 50.49, just off his 50.36 from Beijing and his WR of 50.30. The USA's Michael Andrew broke his second world junior record of the cluster in this event, improving from his 2016 World Championship winning time down to 51.65. 

Men’s 100m IM

1. 50.49 — Vlad Morozov
2. 51.65 — Michael Andrew (World Junior Record)
3. 51.97 — Kenneth To

Morozov finished the night with a blazing 20.61 in the 50m freestyle, dominating the field by 0.7 seconds for the win and posting the fastest time of the 2017 World Cup. 

Men’s 50m Freestyle

1. 20.61 — Vlad Morozov
2. 21.32 — Shinri Shioura*
3. 21.32 — Cameron McEvoy*

Cate Campbell secured her first win of the tour with a wire-to-wire win in the 100m freestyle, finally knocking off Sjöström in this event. Campbell, the recent world-record breaker from Australian Nationals three weeks ago, flipped in 24.28 to win in 50.85, still well off her 50.25 effort. Sjöström touched in 50.99 and Ranomi Kromowidjojo followed in 51.65. These three are pushing women’s sprinting to a whole new level. 

Women’s 100m Freestyle

1. 50.85 — Cate Campbell 
2. 50.99 — Sarah Sjostrom 
3. 51.65 — Ranomi Kromowidjojo

Le Clos and Japan’s Daiya Seto's match race in the 200m fly didn’t disappoint, with Seto being under WR pace for 150m before le Clos put the jets on with a 28.0 final 50m to take the victory just 0.6 off his own world record from 2013. 

Men’s 200m Butterfly

1. 1:49.25 — Chad le Clos
2. 1:50.19 — Daiya Seto
3. 1:52.23 — Masaki Kaneko

Australia’s Emily Seebohm repeated her efforts in the 200m backstroke from Tokyo, again almost negative splitting the race to swim over the top of the USA junior team’s Regan Smith and Iron Lady Katinka Hosszu. Seebohm seems to be taking more of a liking to the 200m distance as she gets older, with multiple victories here and world titles in the event from Kazan, Russia, and Budapest, Hungary. 

Women’s 200m Backstroke

1. 2:01.41 — Emily Seebohm
2. 2:02.70 — Regan Smith
3. 2:04.60 — Katinka Hosszu

Hosszu backed up her bronze medal with a gold in her pet 200m IM event, leading from start to finish, ahead of Seebohm. Surprisingly, Sjöström raced this event internationally for the first time — finishing sixth in 2:09.84. 

Women’s 200m IM

1. 2:04.37 — Katinka Hosszu
2. 2:05.46 — Emily Seebohm
3. 2:06.12 — Seoyeong Kim

Japanese star Ryosuke Irie swam a lifetime best time to take out a hotly contested 100m backstroke. His 49.88 off a 25.5 back end got him to the wall first, ahead of four swimmers who finished between 50.0 and 50.2. 

Men’s 100m Backstroke

1. 49.88 — Ryosuke Irie
2. 50.05 — Jiayu Xu
3. 50.12 — Maski Kaneko

Other Day One Finals Included:

Women’s 100m Breaststroke

1. 1:03.79 — Alia Atkinson
2. 1:05.43 — Rikke Pedersen
3. 1:05.64 — Jinglin Shi

Men’s 400m Freestyle

1. 3:39.36 — Peter Bernek
2. 3:41.24 — Cameron McEvoy
3. 3:41.32 — Poul Zellman

Women’s 200m Butterfly

1. 2:04.22 — Yufei Zhang
2. 2:04.88 — Emma McKeon
3. 2:06.22 — Franziska Hentke

Women’s 800m Freestyle

1. 8:12.36 — Bingjie Li
2. 8:13.20 — Boglarka Kapas
3. 8:27.46 — Jie Dong

Men’s 50m Breaststroke

1. 25.80 — Kirill Prigoda
2. 26.23 — Ilya Shymanovich
3. 26.25 — Yasuhiro Koseki

Top FINA Scorers [Singapore, Day 1]

Men

1. 988 — Vlad Morozov (100m IM)
2. 981 — Chad le Clos (200m Fly)
3. 956 — Daiya Seto (200m Fly)

Women

1. 1005 — Cate Campbell (100m Free)
2. 995 — Sarah Sjostrom (100m Free)
3. 957 — Ranomi Kromowidjojo (100m Free)

Day Two Finals Report

Finals action kicked off Sunday with another match race between Morozov and le Clos over 100m freestyle, which would prove to be the race to decide the cluster winner and the difference between the USD $50,000 first-place prize and USD $35,000 second-place prize. Le Clos matched Morozov’s speed on the way out, flipping 21.8 to 21.6, but it proved to be too much with Morozov returning in 23.8 to record another fast victory. 

Men’s 100m Freestyle

1. 45.56 — Vlad Morozov
2. 46.00 — Chad le Clos
3. 46.82 — Shinri Shioura

The men’s 200m breaststroke world record got a nudge Sunday night, with three men swimming in the 2:01 range in an epic battle. Russia’s Kirill Prigoda was out in 58.1 under WR pace and well ahead of world champion countryman Anton Chupkov, who closed hard as always, but it was Japan’s Daiya Seto who finished the strongest, again displaying his improved breaststroke skills and almost sneaking away with the win. The WR stands at 2:00.44 to German Marco Koch. 

Men’s 200m Breaststroke

1. 2:01.18 — Kirill Prigoda 
2. 2:01.30 — Daiya Seto 
3. 2:01.65 — Anton Chupkov

Sjöström picked up another two gold medals on her 2017 tour, with a narrow win over Ranomi Kromowidjojo in the 50m fly and a dominant victory in a well-credentialed field in the 200m freestyle. Australia’s Emma McKeon made the trip to only Singapore for this year’s tour. Along with Katinka Hosszu, this was a great race to finish the meet on. 

Women’s 50m Butterfly

1. 24.61 — Sarah Sjöström
2. 24.73 — Ranomi Kromowidjojo
3. 25.29 — Cate Campbell

Women’s 200m Freestyle

1. 1:51.63 — Sarah Sjöström
2. 1:53.31 — Emma McKeon
3. 1:53.74 — Katinka Hosszu

Hosszu was pushed early by Korean youngster Seoyeong Kim in the 400m IM but was far too dominant at the finish, storming away in 4:25. Hosszu swept the IM events on the 2017 tour for yet another year. 

Women’s 400m IM

1. 4:25.88 — Katinka Hosszu
2. 4:28.11 — Seoyeong Kim
3. 4:33.69 — Boglarka Kapas

Emily Seebohm had a victorious night, with another close victory over USA youngsters Regan Smith and Alex Walsh in the 100m backstroke and a surprise silver over 50m breaststroke behind Jamaica’s Alia Atkinson, who went through the tour undefeated in the 50m.

Women’s 100m Backstroke

1. 56.23 — Emily Seebohm
2. 56.33 — Regan Smith
3. 57.86 — Alex Walsh

Women’s 50m Breaststroke

1. 29.29 — Alia Atkinson
2. 29.96 — Emily Seebohm
3. 30.32 — Rikke Pedersen

Belarus’ Pavel Sankovich cranked out a personal-best time in the 50m backstroke in a super-fast race with Junya Koga, both swimmers finishing in under 23 seconds. 

Men’s 50m Backstroke

1. 22.82 — Pavel Sankovich
2. 22.97 — Junya Koga
3. 23.18 — Jiayu Xu

Seto and le Clos were back in action, with Seto crushing the field in the 200m IM and le Clos hanging on for a narrow victory in the 100m fly. China’s Zhuhao Li smashed the world junior record in the 100m fly after finishing in under 50 seconds for the first time.

Men’s 200m IM

1. 1:51.88 — Daiya Seto
2. 1:54.44 — Ryosuke Irie
3. 1:55.11 — Kenneth To

Men’s 100m Butterfly

1. 49.49 – Chad le Clos
2. 49.53 – Zhuhao Li (World Junior Record)
3. 50.22 – Yauhen Tsurkin

Hungary’s Gergely Gyurta finalized his preparations for next month European Championships with a clear victory in his pet 1500m freestyle event. 

Men’s 1500m Freestyle

1. 14:33.69 — Gergely Gyurta
2. 14:46.61 — Poul Zellman
3. 14:55.56 — Andrew Abruzzo

Top FINA Scorers [Singapore]

Men

1. 988 — Vlad Morozov (100m IM)
2. 981 — Chad le Clos (200m Fly)
3. 981 — Kirill Prigoda (200m Breast)

Women

1. 1005 — Cate Campbell (100m Free)
2. 995 — Sarah Sjöström (100m Free)
3. 958 — Ranomi Kromowidjojo (50m Fly)

Final Cluster Point Scorers

Men

1. 144 — Vlad Morozov
2. 141 — Chad le Clos
3. 114 — Daiya Seto
4. 66 — Yasuhiro Koseki
5. 63 — Kirill Prigoda
6. 51 — Jiayu Xu
7. 51 — Ryosuke Irie
8. 30 — Pavel Sankovich/Masaki Kaneko

Women

1. 183 — Sarah Sjöström
2. 123 — Katinka Hosszu
3. 117 — Ranomi Kromowidjojo
4. 108 — Emily Seebohm
5. 84 — Cate Campbell
6. 57 — Alia Atkinson
7. 39 — Zufei Wang
8. 36 — Boglarka Kapas

Cluster Bonus Prizes

1. $50,0000
2. $35,000
3. $30,000
4. $20,000
5. $10,000
6. $5,000
7. $4,000
8. $3,000

Editorial Coverage By Bobby Hurley