With one final session to go, there isn’t much that can change the ranking concerning the overall winners of the 2015 FINA/airweave Swimming World Cup: among men, Cameron van der Burgh (RSA) will be the champion, while among women Katinka Hosszu (HUN) is assured the top place.
And the first thing we can say about these two great champions is that this status – winner of the World Cup – is not a novelty for them. The South African breaststroker had already been the best in 2008 and 2009, while the Magyar “Iron Lady” gets her fourth consecutive success since 2012.
Van der Burgh’s participation in the World Cup series dates back from 2007: on October 29, in home soil (precisely in Durban), the South African swims two events, the 50m and 200m breaststroke. In the shortest distance, he is disqualified, but in the 200m, he gets his first gold ever in the competition, in a time of 2:11.37. Since then, the 27-year-old has amassed 44 titles so far in the World Cup, counting with the 50m-victory on Day 1 in Dubai. Qualified second for today’s final of the 100m breast, again behind his newest rival on the pool, Adam Peaty (GBR), he expects to once more do better than the Brit in the decisive race.
One of the most admired swimmers in South Africa (alongside Chad Le Clos), Cameron van der Burgh has a very successful career, both in long and short course events. His highlight is definitively the 2012 Olympic title in the 100m breaststroke, in a World Record time of 58.46 (the best global mark now stands with Peaty, at 57.92). His appearance to the wider world happened in 2007, at the FINA World Championships in Melbourne (AUS), where he got a bronze medal in the 50m. Since then, he collected a total of nine medals at world level, including two titles – the latest being his 2013 victory also in the shortest event. In Kazan 2015, he was silver medallist twice, always behind Peaty in the 50m and 100m breaststroke. In fact, at World Championships’ level, Van der Burgh is on the podium of the 50m since 2007 and of the 100m since 2009.
Also a distinguished South African representative at the 2010 and 2014 Commonwealth Games, he has six medals from this competition. He likes to say that one of the great moments of his career is when he was chosen to carry the flag of his country at the Opening of the Commonwealth Games in 2010, in Delhi (IND).
At short course level – the World Cup has been traditionally held in 25m-pool, the 2015 format in long course being a novelty -, Cameron van der Burgh is also consistent, having won five medals since the 2008 FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) in Manchester (GBR). Precisely in Dubai 2010 he obtained the only gold in this collection, in the 100m breaststroke (again, a good sign for tonight’s final?).
In this year’s FINA/airweave Swimming World Cup, he has so far a perfect record in the 50m breaststroke (he won all the seven titles at stake, after the cancellation of a finals’ session in Singapore following a big level of haze in the city) and in the 100m – a win today, would be the eighth of the season. After the 50m win on Day 1, he briefly commented on his World Cup experience: “It’s been quite a hard World Cup, a lot of travelling, it’s been quite tiring, but it’s really great to be able to do fast times here in Dubai”.
Concerning Katinka Hosszu, we can say that she completes a perfect loop in Dubai. If she wins (it is almost sure that she will do it) the last women’s race today in the Hamdan Sports Complex, the 400m IM (she holds a perfect record of seven wins so far this year), we can recall that she won precisely the initial women’s event in this same venue in 2012, the date of her first participation in the World Cup. On that year, the Dubai rendezvous was opening the series and on October 2, Hosszu wins the 200m free in 1:55.97. 151 (yes, one-hundred-fifty-one) individual gold medals later, the Hungarian star is forever associated with the history of the World Cup.
She holds by far the highest number of titles in the event – she is only vaguely approached by two other legends of the competition, Slovakia’s Martina Moravcova (105) and Sweden’s Therese Alshammar (93), but already retired -, and has shown an incredible versatility over these last four years. To sum up, we can rapidly say that Hosszu swims everything but pure breaststroke events. In freestyle (from 100m to 800m) through medley (200m and 400m), and passing by backstroke (50m, 100m, 200m) and butterfly (50m, 100m, 200m), the Hungarian star is a possible medal winner in all races. Her nickname “Iron Lady” reflects perfectly this state of mind – Hosszu seems sometimes made of steel and her main opponents know that very well. Her capacity to swim tough races within the space of minutes has been one of the trademarks of the Magyar at the World Cup.
Outside the frame of this competition, Hosszu (2014 FINA Best Female Swimmer of the Year) is also an example of success – at World Championships level, she now amassed nine awards, including five titles. Recently in Kazan (RUS), the Hungarian star got the gold in the 200m and 400m IM and was bronze medallist in the 200m backstroke. In short course pool, her roll of honour is even more impressive – she was 13 times on the podium, including six on the highest march. Last December in Doha (QAT), she earned eight medals, including the titles in the 100m and 200m backstroke, and 100m and 200m IM.
The only medal missing is an Olympic one – Hosszu was present at the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Games, but was never strong enough to ascend to the podium. At 26, the 2016 rendezvous in Rio will certainly be one of the last opportunities to make it. And the Magyar swimmer will certainly seize the occasion to enrich her impressive collection.