U.S. Kazan 2015 mantra: 'are defeats necessary?'

KAZAN, Russia — David Plummer is a championship backstroker. Here, he served as a captain of the U.S. team. Two years ago, at the world championships in Barcelona, Plummer earned silver in the 100 back. Here, though, he managed only a ninth-place finish, not even good enough to make the finals, ultimately won by Australia’s Mitchell Larkin. As the 2015 world championships drew Sunday to a close, Plummer turned to Twitter, and some philosophy from the Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho:

“I ask myself: are defeats necessary? Well, necessary or not, they happen…

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.

“Only when we overcome [our trials] do we understand why they were there.”

The quest for understanding begins now.

These 2015 Kazan world championships marked arguably the American team’s poorest performance in the history of the world championships, dating to 1973.

When all was said and done, the U.S. ended up with 23 medals, eight gold.

The American team’s weakest world championships performance, before this one: 1994, in Rome, with 21 medals, four gold.

Take out the two medals in the mixed relays, both new events (gold in the 4x100 free Saturday, silver in the 4x1 medley Wednesday) and the total drops to 21.

Those figures stand in stark contrast to the 2013 total: 29 overall, 13 gold.

Compare, too, to recent years: 29 and 16 at Shanghai 2011, 22 and 10 in 2009 (Rome again), at the height of the plastic-suit craziness.

The only Americans to win individual gold: Katie Ledecky (four), Ryan Lochte (one). That’s it. The other winners: that mixed relay, the women's 4x200 free relay (anchored by Ledecky), the men's medley.

The question heading toward a different set of Trials, next summer in Omaha, a few weeks before the Aug. 5 start of the Rio Games, is whether what happened here amounts to aberration or the confluence of potent trends that mean the United States’ long-established role at the top of the swimming world is at significant risk.

— It’s indisputable that, owing to the worldwide import of Michael Phelps, world-class swimming has gotten better and, more so, better in more places. Argentina won its first-ever medal here. So, too, Singapore. Akram Ahmed of Egypt took fourth in the men’s 1500 Sunday night. A record 189 nations competed in Kazan, up from 177 at Barcelona 2013.

— The Australians are back, and in a big way. The Aussies won one gold in swimming at the London 2012 Games, three in Barcelona. Here, seven gold, 16 overall.

— The Brits emerged as a force, in particular 200 free champ James May and breaststroke god Adam Peaty. Their final tally: five gold, nine overall.

— The Chinese have both talent and depth, with 13 medals overall, five gold, including Ning Zetao's victory in the 100; he is the first Asian to win swimming's male heavyweight fight.

Ning’s victory made things a little crazy on the internet in China. The Wall Street Journal reported that a CCTV host wrote on his verified account that Ning “is the husband in everyone’s dream.”

Never mind that Ning is just 22.

The same host, referring to the social media-app WeChat, “All women went crazy overnight, and pictures of all angles of his abdominal muscles swept my WeChat moments.”

By mid-day Friday, more than 100,000 web users had posted selfies with the hashtag “Ning Zetao’s Girlfriend.”

“We call handsome boys little fresh meat,” a Weibo user wrote. “But for special ones like Ning, he should be called little fresh fish.”

As for the Americans, and first the bright spots:

— Ledecky raced into the history books, winning five gold medals, the 200, 400, 800 and 1500, and that 4x200 free relay.

In all, Kazan 2015 featured 12 world records. Ledecky set three of them.

For the next year, she will be the face of the American team, which is lovely, because she not only wins, she wins with great class.

On Saturday, after her final race, the 800 free, which she won in world-record time, Ledecky met with the press, then as she was walking away from a media clutch, she met up with a gaggle of red-shirted volunteers who squealed in happiness that she would take a picture with them.

Unaware that three reporters were lingering behind, Ledecky said to the volunteers, “Thanks for all the great work you do.”

Ledecky and Kerri Walsh Jennings, the beach volleyball star, are in this way always gracious and polite to seemingly everyone they meet. Maybe it’s something about Stanford, which is where Walsh Jennings went and Ledecky is due to attend.

— Phelps, assuming he sticks to his vow to keep doing the hard work that swimming absolutely demands, figures to race for gold in at least three events next summer, the 100 and 200 flys and the 200 individual medley.

Swimming this week in San Antonio, at the U.S. nationals, Phelps won the 100 fly in 50.45, the 200 in 1:52.94. Both times would have won here.

More pointedly, both victories came amid some smack-talk from the likes of Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh, winner in Kazan of the 200 fly, and South Africa’s Chad le Clos, winner here of the 100 fly.

Le Clos won Saturday in 50.56, then declared Phelps hadn’t gone that fast in years.

Oops — just hours later in San Antonio, here came that 50.45, Phelps' fastest-time ever in the event in a textile suit.

Le Clos also said here, referring to Phelps, “I’m just very happy that he’s back to his good form so he can’t come out and say, ‘Oh, I haven’t been training,’ or all that rubbish that he’s been talking. Next year is going to be Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier.”

Cseh won Wednesday in 1:53.48. Of Phelps’ 1:52.94 in San Antonio, the fastest time by any swimmer since Phelps himself in 2009, Cseh said, “It’s quite good but it doesn’t matter because I won the world championship.”

Gentlemen, we are not here to tell you what to say, or not, but history has shown repeatedly that if Phelps puts in his training blocks, you mess with fire when you blow this kind of smoke.

Ask the likes of Ian Thorpe, Ian Crocker and, famously, Milorad Cavic.

When Phelps has someone he can — in his mind — target, it has not gone well, swim-wise, for said target.

“The comments were interesting,” Phelps said Saturday in San Antonio. “It just fuels me. If you want to do it, go for it. I welcome it.”

— Lochte's victory in the 200 IM made for his fourth world championship gold in a row in the event.

At the same time, he finished fourth in the 200 free, same as in 2013 and 2012.

Lochte is for sure Mr. Reliable on the relays, where the American performance here — without Lochte or Nathan Adrian, the U.S. men failed to qualify for the 4x1 finals — showed just how valuable he is.

Here is the challenge for Lochte in the 200 IM come the U.S. Trials in Omaha and, presumably, Rio:

Phelps.

At an Olympics, the 200 IM traditionally comes on the same night as the 200 back, and thus it will be in Rio, on Thursday, Aug. 11. At previous Games, Lochte has opted to try to pull off that grueling double. In London, he took third in the 200 back, then silver — behind Phelps — in the 200 IM.

-- Connor Jaeger broke the 11-year-old American record in the 1500 on Sunday night, going 14:41.2. Larsen Jensen had gone 14:45.29 at the 2004 Athens Games.

Now for some question marks:

— This U.S. 2015 team was picked a year ago. Was that a good plan? No Caitlin Leverenz, Allison Schmitt, Jack Conger or others who might have made a difference.

— The U.S. sprinting program, excluding Adrian, needs someone to step up, and big time. No one did here.

— Tyler Clary had won a medal of some sort at the 2009, 2011 and 2013 worlds; he is the 2012 London 200 back gold medalist. Here? No medals.

-- Jaeger: That 14:41.2 earned him silver, 1.53 seconds behind Gregorio Paltrinieri of Italy, in 14:39.67. China's Sun Yang, the world record-holder and pre-race favorite, did not swim, saying he felt a heart problem -- literally his heart, not his desire to race -- before the call to the blocks. Jaeger's other Kazan races: fourth, 400 free; fourth, 800 free.

— The relays: That the U.S. men missed out on the finals of the 4x1 free is, in a word, inexcusable. The men’s 4x2 free relay finished second, the first time since 2004 the Americans had not won at a worlds or Olympics (the British took first, with Guy making up a 1.63-second deficit and then some, touching 42-hundredths ahead of Michael Weiss).

In 2001, the U.S. men won no relays. That had been the only time ever at worlds history there had been no U.S. men’s relay gold.

Thus the stakes were high for Sunday night’s medley, the Americans opting to lead off not with Matt Grevers — gold medalist in the 100 back at London 2012 and Barcelona 2013, silver medalist in the event at Beijing 2008 — but with Ryan Murphy, who threw out a 52.18 in the mixed medley relay heats.

The thinking? Larkin won the 100 back in 52.40. Murphy’s 52.18 made for the fourth-fastest time ever in the event.

Larkin kept the Americans close, third, with a 53.05; Larkin turned the race over with the Aussies in first, in 52.41. On the third leg, butterfly, Tom Shields put the Americans in first; Adrian held on to bring the Americans home to gold in 3:29.93.

Adrian's free split: 47.41.

The split for Australia's Cameron McEvoy, who was closing: 46.6.

— Dana Vollmer is back in training. She won the women’s 100 fly in London. Can she, now a new mom, make it all the way back to the top of the world stage?

— Missy Franklin? Ohmigod, she did not win every single thing she entered. What?!

Franklin did, for instance, come through, and in a big way, in that mixed 4x1 free relay, anchoring the team to victory and a world record.

As Franklin heads back home to Colorado, however, it’s clear that Ledecky is now the 200 free boss, so there’s that.

For another, Franklin was clearly not her best self here. She faded significantly on the last lap of Saturday’s 200 backstroke, a race she has owned for years. Summoned to swim the backstroke leg of the women's medley Sunday night, she managed 59.81, fifth; the Americans would end up fourth.

Franklin’s longtime coach, Todd Schmitz, told the Denver Post a few weeks ago that he has had to “rekindle” in her “the same kind of fire that I used to see.”

Franklin said Saturday she was “proud” of what she had done here, given the work she had put in over the past two months; she said she looked forward to seeing the results of a full year of going at it hard.

Plummer, meanwhile, has been chasing Rio since missing out on London 2012 by 12-hundredths of a second.

His ninth-place Monday in the 100 came while he was, literally, sick. “Have been battling a stomach bug, but I can't make any excuses,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “I have to find a way to be faster.”

On Sunday, in the 50 back, a non-Olympic event, Plummer finished eighth, of eight, in 24.95. Camille Lacourt of France won, in 24.23; Grevers took second, in 24.61.

Maybe, then, time for another quote that Plummer once cited, this one on his Facebook page, from “The Boys in the Boat,” the story of the University of Washington rowing crew that won gold at the 1936 Berlin Games:

"The trick would be to find which few of them had the potential for raw power, the nearly superhuman stamina, the indomitable willpower, and the intellectual capacity necessary to master the details of technique."

The deadline in this instance is already marked on swim calendars: the first day of the U.S. Trials in Omaha. It's Sunday, June 26, 2016.

An indisputable U.S. swim bright spot: Katie Ledecky

KAZAN, Russia — For Katie Ledecky, every single race on the big stage becomes an opportunity to make the superbly difficult look so easy.

On Monday, in the preliminary rounds of the women’s 1500 freestyle, the 30-lap race that swimmers call the mile, Ledecky broke her own world record, touching in 15:27.71, 65-hundredths faster than she had gone last August at the Pan Pacific championships in Australia.

That 15:27.71 also obliterated — by almost nine seconds — the former world championships (and then-world record) mark of 15:36.53, which Ledecky set on the way to winning gold in Barcelona in 2013.

A 1500 world-record in the prelims! Afterward, Ledecky said it came easy.

Asked how she felt on a scale of 1 to 10, she laughed and said, in awesome Spinal Tap-stye, “Eleven.”

She added, “You know, I feel great. It’s pretty — it’s probably one of the coolest world records I have broken. Each one is really unique. But just sort of how relaxed I was, and how calm.”

For the U.S. team, Ledecky’s performance offered a measure of salvation at a meet that is, just two days in, proving true the knowing predictions beforehand behind the scenes.

Not one American swimmer earned so much as a medal Monday night.

There were three finals Monday night in events that also get raced at an Olympics: the women's 200 individual medley, the men's 100 breaststroke and women's 100 butterfly.

In the women's 200 IM, Katinka Hosszu of Hungary charged to a new world record, 2:06.12, three-hundredths of a second faster than the mark Ariana Kukors had set at the Rome 2009 championships. The two Americans in the race finished fourth (Maya Di Rado) and seventh (Melanie Margalis).

The men's 100 breast and women's 100 fly finals? Those went off without any American qualifiers. None. Nada. Zip.

In that 100 fly, Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom, for the second time in two days, set a world record. On Sunday, she went 55.74; Monday, 55.64.

The men's 50 fly final (like the women's 1500 a non-Olympic event)? Again, no U.S. qualifier.

The results Monday night came after the U.S. men’s 4x100 relay team finished 11th in Sunday’s prelims, a stunning turn — inexplicable, really — that left the Americans out of Sunday night’s final, won by France.

Also Sunday, there were two U.S. swimmers in the men's 400 free final, Connor Jaeger and Michael McBroom. Neither made it to the top three.

At the London 2012 Games, U.S. swimmers earned medals in that men's 400 free (Peter Vanderkaay), men's 100 breast (Brendan Hansen), women's 100 fly (Dana Vollmer) and women's 200 IM (Caitlin Leverenz).

Not one of those swimmers -- for various reasons -- is in Kazan.

To be clear, there are six more nights of racing in Kazan, and the U.S. is assuredly in line to take home medals. On Monday night, these U.S. swimmers moved on to Tuesday's finals: Matt Grevers in the 100 backstroke; Ryan Lochte, 200 free; Missy Franklin and Kathleen Baker, 100 back.

At the same time, David Plummer, the Barcelona 2013 world championship silver medalist in the 100 back, did not qualify. Nor did Jessica Hardy in the 100 breast, a race in which in 2009 she set a then-world record; at Barcelona 2013, she took bronze in the event. Nor did Conor Dwyer in the 200 free; in Barcelona, he won silver in the race.

It has been so long on the world and Olympic stage since the since the U.S. team came up empty-handed like it did in Monday's finals that experienced hands could not recall the last time it happened — evidence not only that the Americans need to step up their efforts aiming toward Rio 2016 but that the rest of the world has gotten a lot more capable.

The U.S. team has been so good for so long that it seems almost heresy to acknowledge there might be vulnerability if not weakness. But, aiming toward Rio 2016, concern would appear to be justified.

In prior years, the worlds the year before an Olympics has proven a solid gauge of U.S. swim performance at the forthcoming Games. For instance, in Shanghai in 2011, U.S. swimmers won 29 medals, 16 gold; in London in 2012, 31 and 16.

In the lead-up to Kazan 2015, however, it had become evident the U.S. team was not going to be at its best at these championships. For one, Michael Phelps is not here. For another, this team was picked a year ago, a strategy that may now deserve extensive review.

By “not at its best,” let’s be clear — that’s relative to the high standards traditionally set by U.S. swimming.

That would be tolerable, in a sense, if there weren't warning signs for a year from now. Going down the line: where are the results that would suggest bright U.S. prospects for medals in Rio in events such as the women’s 200 breaststroke and 100 butterfly? The men’s 100 breast? And more.

The question ought to be posed now, with 12 months to go before Rio: what — if anything — is the plan?

This needs to be asked, too, because it is just as much part of the package: what expectation is there for being part of a U.S. national team?

Too, as the sport has grown, it’s evident that many American swimmers are keen to be considered eminently “professional” athletes. That's all well and good. But in the context of preparing for world and Olympic meets: what does that mean? Finances are one thing but this takes work, and a lot. Whose job is it to get them to produce when the time is right?

Amid all this, there is Ledecky.

Three years ago, at the London 2012 Games, she won the 800.

Two years ago to the day, August 3, she broke the world record in the 800 at the Barcelona 2013 world championships.

All in, before Monday, Ledecky had set seven world records — two in the 400, two in the 800, three in the 1500.

On Sunday here, she won the 400 — just shy of world-record pace but in a new world championships time, 3:59.13.

When she woke up Monday morning, looking out at her plan for the week, Ledecky could see the 1500, the 800 and, as well, the 200 free — with the complication that the 1500 final and the rounds of the 200 are about 20 minutes apart on Tuesday.

And, probably, the 4x200 relay, too.

Her coach, Bruce Gemmel, laid out the plan for the 1500 heat Monday morning: the first 900 meters easy, the next 300 building speed, the final 300 Ledecky’s choice — however she felt, fast or not.

The idea was to take the race as something of a building block for the rest of the week.

“I was, like, barely even focusing on this morning’s swim,” she would say later. “I was just so relaxed. Like all my teammates knew I was going 900 easy, 300 build, 300 choice. So I think they’re probably in the most shock.”

The numbers verge on the surreal:

— Her first 400 meters: 4:06.41. Her last 400: 4:05.87.

— That 4:06.41? That would have put her sixth in the 400 she won Sunday night.

— At 800, she was at 8:15.29. That’s 1. second-best in the world in 2015, behind only the 8:11.21 that Ledecky herself put up, 2. in the top-10 all-time if had itself been an 800 free and 3. faster than Janet Evans ever swam in the 800. That would be the same Janet Evans who held the world record in the 800 for 19 years, from 1989 until 2008.

— Ledecky's last lap? 29.47. That was her second-fastest lap of the race; she opened the first 50 with a 28.56.

— Ledecky won the heat by 28.81 seconds over Jessica Ashwood of Australia. All Ashwood did in the race was lower her own Australian record, to 15:56.52 from 15:56.86, which she had put down at a grand prix meet in Townsville, Australia, on June 20.

-- Swimvortex.com, an authority on the sport, pointed out that Ledecky's 15:27.71 is eight-hundredths of a second faster than the time in which Australia's Steven Holland set the world record to win the Commonwealth Games men's 1500 in 1975.

-- Nick Zaccardi of NBCOlympics.com took to his Twitter feed to point out: Ledecky, age 18, 15.27.71. Lochte, age 19 in the 1500 at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials, 15:28.37.

— American Katy Campbell finished eighth in the same heat Monday morning, in 16:39.98, three lanes over from Ledecky. That Katy Campbell is here belies the obvious: she is a world-class swimmer. There’s no way to say this delicately, so here goes: Katie Ledecky lapped Katy Campbell.

Asked afterward if it is hard to race someone who is obviously so much better, Campbell said, “I think for everyone it is,” quickly adding that Ledecky is “such a lovely and warm person” and “if you can get close to her,” meaning time-wise in the pool, “you’re one of the best, too.”

Here is what is truly scary about Ledecky’s swim: she not only made it look easy, she said it was easy.

“To be honest,” she said, “it did feel pretty easy. I wasn’t kicking much. I think breaking that record is just a testament to the work I have put in, the shape that I’m in right now that, you know, I was able to do that.

“I’m in quite a bit of shock right now,” she said.

Once more, she wasn’t kicking that much!

“My pulling has improved a lot,” she said, which is swim talk for moving the body in the water with your arms.

“You know, shout out to Andrew Gemmel,” a leading U.S. open-water swimmer who is also the son of her coach, Bruce. “He’s the fastest puller in the world. And I think, you know, having Bruce as a coach, you do a little bit more pulling.

“You know,” she said, “I do kick a lot for a distance swimmer, and I think I did kind of decide to rest my legs a little bit and see what I could do just pulling.”

See what I could do just pulling! Only a world record.

Asked when she knew she was on record pace, Ledecky said, “I realized kind of toward the end because I could see people, you know, waving. I could see where my parents and brother and uncle were sitting, and I could see them waving as well. It didn’t even like spur me on it all.

“I was just — I didn’t want to get up and race even harder, because I felt like if I just maintained the same pace I was holding that maybe I would still get under it. If I didn’t, I wasn’t really expecting it.”

Someone asked if, now that she had broken the world record, Ledecky planned to take it easier in Tuesday night’s final, concentrating on just winning the race.

“Not necessarily,” she said, adding that the plan is to “swim it pretty similar to how I swam it this morning, maybe a little faster. Again, I didn’t put much focus on this, this morning — so maybe I shouldn’t do that tomorrow, either.”

A minute or two later, she said the 20 minutes between the 1500 and the 200 “should be plenty of time” to “get a good warm-down in between,” emphasizing, “So I’ll be fine.”

She also said, “In finals, there’s always a little bit more energy and excitement. I have never been somebody who swims slower at finals. So hopefully I can be right on that or a little better.

“You never know.”