FLAWLESS DOUGLASS

American wins World Cup title with perfect record; medley king Marchand is top male

- David Lee

In 11 events across China, South Korea and Singapore, Kate Douglass was peerless throughout her maiden short-course World Aquatics Swimming World Cup.

She won each of her heats and finals, all 22 of them, and deservedly claimed the women's individual ranking title with 178.5 points at the OCBC Aquatic Centre on Nov 2.

The 22-year-old capped a perfect campaign by winning the women's 100m freestyle final – in her first time competing in this event at the 2024 World Cup – in an American record of 50.82 seconds, ahead of Hong Kong's Siobhan Haughey (51.56sec) and Poland's Katarzyna Wasick (52.04sec).

Douglass, who earned US$100,000 (S$132,600) for her individual title and US$184,000 overall, told The Sunday Times: "It's been a unique and fun experience, something I've never done before. I got to meet a lot of cool people whom I haven't gotten to spend time with, and this kind of brought the fun back to swimming.

"I didn't think I would win everything that I swim, but it shows that with the training I've been doing, I'm in a really good spot, and I'm looking forward to the (Dec 10-15) short-course world championships."