Propulsion Swimming Podcast · Propulsion Swimming

Singapore Worlds 2025 Day 2 Review

·43 min·2 clips

Maxime Grosé breathed at 35 to go and still beat Ponti by 0.03.

Day two of the Singapore World Championships drives the discussion. McIntosh's second of potential five gold medals, Walsh's second-fastest time of all time, and the semi-final drama are the main talking points, and the hosts use them to frame what tomorrow's finals could look like. The pace stays brisk. They keep coming back to McIntosh's 200 IM world record and the earlier question of how hard she can open the butterfly leg before the back half starts asking questions. That matters. The hosts suggest she may have been a little more aggressive on the front end than she has been in some recent swims, which could explain why the backstroke, breaststroke, or freestyle never quite had the same room to breathe. Walsh gets a big read too. Her performance is treated as one of the standout swims of the meet so far, with the conversation landing on how close she is to all-time history and how ridiculous that kind of speed looks in real time. The semis are not just a footnote. They use those races to sketch the shape of the finals session, including which events already feel loaded and where the nerves are likely to show up first. The talk stays conversational. That makes the technical detail easy to follow, because the hosts can move from split times to race feel to the bigger championship picture without sounding like they are reading from a chart. There is some back-and-forth. That helps when they wonder aloud whether McIntosh's reaction at the pool edge was the raw response to a swim that missed her own internal target, or just the immediate frustration that comes with experimenting at Worlds. The energy stays high. Even when they revisit earlier clips and past records, they keep the focus on what those swims mean now, not just what they looked like on paper when the clocks stopped. It feels fan-led. The episode never loses sight of the fact that these are real races with real pressure, and that tiny differences in pacing can change how a gold medal feels. The closing stretch points forward. By the end, McIntosh, Walsh, and the unsettled semi-final picture all feel like they are pushing straight into the next day's finals story.

As heard by us

McIntosh, Walsh, and a finals board that still feels open.

Singapore's second day comes in hard and fast: Summer McIntosh is chasing a second gold out of a possible five, Gretchen Walsh has the second-fastest time ever, and the semifinal drama leaves tomorrow's finals feeling wide open.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Worlds Day 2 in Singapore, with McIntosh, Walsh, and finals drama.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Propulsion Swimming Podcast