International Swimming League (ISL)
- Paula Garcia Estrella
- Oct 10, 2021
- 3 min read
ISL (International Swimming League) is an annual professional swimming league, established in 2019. It features a team-based competition format with fast-paced race sessions. In 2019, the regular season started in October and the Final Match was held in December.
"NEW. BEAUTIFUL. EQUAL"
"The International Swimming League is a brand-new event making waves in competitive swimming. 10 teams take to 13 events across Hungary, USA, UK and Italy to decide the best collective in the swimming world"
This is a brand new league with the purpose of giving world-class athletes the opportunity of doing what they love with some financial incentives while having fun. It's a unique and different format from what we are used to for a swim meet: A commercially successful swimming competition with a media friendly format running them in different cities worldwide.
Here is a video explaining what ISL is and why they started it:
(I recommend watching it, you would be able to understand it better)
The season is split into a regular championship and a final. In the regular championship teams earn points from participating in matches according to the following principles: 4 points for 1st place in the match, 3 for 2nd, 2 for 3rd and 1 for 4th. After all of the championship matches, the 4 teams with the highest number of points advance to the final, where the winner of the league (the ISL Champions) are determined. There is also an MPV (swimmer that earns most points) for every match and one MPV of the season. ISL is composed of 10 teams. Each team can have a maximum roster of 32 athletes. At each match 28 of these are permitted to compete - 12 men and 12 women can swim individual races, while 2 men and 2 women can be used as "relay only" athletes.
The 10 teams are the following: NY Breakers, Tokyo Frog Kings, London Roar, Cali Condors, Iron, Aqua Centurions, Toronto Titans, Energy Standard, DC Trident and LA Current.
As you can see most of the names have references of cities and different parts of the world, but this doesn't mean that all the swimmers from that team are form that place. For example, Cali Condor is an American team but has swimmer from all around the world. All of the best swimmers in the world are mixed in between the teams and that in my opinion is what makes the ISL great. We have tons of competition where you represent your country but with this format you get to meet new people and get that diversity int eh swimming world.
This format is not just more entertain to watch it's also more fun for athletes to swim. I think the swimming world needed a big change and this is just what we needed. It's something unique and different from what've been doing. At the same time I love how many more opportunities bring to the swimmers and coaches all around the world.
And lastly, as I said before the best way to understand swimming is by watching it. So, here is a video of one of the top races of the ISL to give you a sense of what I'm talking about and to see how much different it is from any other swim meet you've ever watched.
Here is the official website of the ISL and social media accounts if you want to take a look into those!
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