A movement with the federal leaders eliminated and with an Olympics that could have gone better behind it, but with a series of fearsome athletes who sharpened their blades at the short course World Championships. Walsh, Hobson and… are coming.
Can you emerge with broken bones, with federal leaders eliminated and with heavy criticism in the newspapers from an Olympics in which you still won the medal table with 28 podiums, nine more than the closest pursuing nation? You can if you are from the United States of America, if swimming is practically a religion for you, if your number of gold medals (eight) was the lowest since 1988, if you won only one individual title with the men’s team ( having to wait until the last day) and if your most symbolic relay, the men’s 4×100 mixed race, undefeated in history, was finally defeated by China’s bitter enemies (not just sporting ones). Even more so four years after the home Olympics, where the swimming competitions will take place solemnly in a football stadium in front of 38 thousand people and will replace athletics in the second week of the calendar, the most prestigious. USA Swimming has not yet found a definitive structure after the post-Paris 2024 purges (CEO Tim Hinckey resigned and was replaced by Shana Ferguson, who is however interim leader, while the position of team director is still vacant in place of Lindsay Mintenko ), but the four-year period leading to Los Angeles 2028 began with a very specific message launched by the short course World Championships which ended yesterday in Budapest.