Top Five Storylines to Follow at the 2025 U.S. Open Championships

By Terin Frodyma on SwimSwam

2025 U.S. OPEN

The Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center will kick off action for the 2025 U.S. Open Championships on Wednesday, where a deep conglomerate of international and domestic talent will gather in one of the calendar year’s final major contests.

As we wrap up the Thanksgiving weekend festivities, here are five things to keep an eye on for the U.S. Open Championships prior to sinking your teeth into the action in Austin.

Summer’s Return

After missing out on what could have been a dominant World Cup outing in October due to illness, Summer McIntosh will make her highly anticipated return to racing in Austin.

She is slated to race the 100 fly, 100 back, 100 breast, 200 fly, and 400 IM, the latter two in which she is the reigning world champion. The Canadian superstar will have her opportunity to get right back to where she left off, as we saw in Singapore.

The last time we saw McIntosh race, she captured four golds, became only the third swimmer to capture five individual medals at a single World Championships, and was named Female Swimmer of the Meet by World Aquatics for her outing in Singapore.

Now representing Longhorn Aquatics, McIntosh should be well challenged in a number of events in Austin. One of the more interesting storylines (within this storyline) is how she will fare in her 100s.

More predominantly a middle-distance swimmer, who dabbles in the distance realm, her 100 fly will definitely be among the most highlighted races of the week; competing against the likes of Gretchen Walsh, Regan Smith, and Alex Shackell, it should be a great opportunity to see how well she stacks up in some of the shorter distances.

She is notably absent from the 200 IM, but the 400 free and 200 fly should be good return-to-form swims for her. Look for McIntosh to close out her 2025 with a bang in Austin.

Bowman’s Groups Headline In Home Water

It is no secret that the Texas Pro Group assembled by Bob Bowman in Austin is heavy in the “star-studded” category. With this U.S. Open taking place in familiar water, that could be a recipe for success for Bowman’s swimmers.

Regan Smith, Leon Marchand, Summer McIntosh, Carson Foster, Shaine Casas, the list seems to be endless. Most of them sit at or right near the top of every event they are entered in.

The Longhorn pro group will also be joined by numerous Texas swimmers, including Rex Maurer, Jillian Cox, and Erin Gemmell. After coming off such successful meets like the World Cup and the college team’s Texas Hall of Fame Invite, these groups could ride that high through to 2026.

Casas specifically is swimming some of the best of his career here in the back half of the year, winning eight golds on the World Cup circuit, and his six entered events show that he is ready to keep that train rolling in Austin.

It should be interesting to see what kinds of swims are thrown down in Austin, especially from this group, with the overall starpower in attendance.

Australian Representation at the U.S. Open

With how loaded the entries for this U.S. Open meet are, a number of Australian talents will join in on the festivities. Though the total number is not immense, Australia will still have a solid representation in Austin, many of whom represent Swimming Victoria.

Among those entered, Tara Kinder and Isabelle Boyd should be competitive in the women’s 200 IM, where they are seeded 4th and 5th, respectively. Kinder also sits at a pre-meet 3rd in the 200 breast.

David Schlicht could also make some noise in the men’s 200 IM, where he sits 6th on the psych sheets.

It should be interesting to see what kind of noise the Australians make as this week progresses.

World Champions Galore

The stars will be out in abundance in Austin, with the likes of Gretchen Walsh, Kate Douglass, Leon Marchand, Hubert Kos, and McIntosh, just to name a few.

Marchand will be swimming the same lineup as McIntosh, so we will get to see him take on some shorter distances and events that are a bit rarer for him to race, such as the 400 free.

That 400 free for Marchand should be a very intriguing race, as it includes numerous marquee names such as Ahmed Jaouadi, Rex Maurer, Luka Mijatovic, Carson Foster, Kieran Smith, Luke Hobson, and Aaron Shackell, among many others.

As for Walsh, he is coming off a thunderous World Cup showing and will be looking for similar results in a long-course pool. Her, Douglass, and Simone Manuel will go toe-to-toe-to-toe in the 50 free and 100 free, where they are separated by mere tenths of a second in each race.

Douglass is coming off a World Cup crown, following three very impressive showings in Carmel, Westmont, and Toronto over the three-week series. She is swimming some of the fastest times in history right now, and now she will have the same chance to show why she is among the best in the world, this time in a 50-meter pool.

As for the Male World Cup winner, Kos will have the chance to close out his 2025 campaign with a bang. His World Cup performances showed he was on a new level, and now he will get to show that again, this time against another World Champion, Pieter Coetze. Coetze got the better of Kos in the 50 back and 100 back in Singapore, but the Hungarian Kos topped the South African backstroker in the 200. This U.S. Open could be the next chapter of a potential long-standing rivalry between two young, yet established, backstroke powerhouses.

How does Dressel fare after a training change?

After sending the swimming world into a frenzy over an Instagram story, and later announcing the decision to leave his longtime training home in Gainesville to join the Sporting Jax Aquatic Club, many eyes in the sport will be on the 29-year-old Caeleb Dressel.

Dressel has not competed since the U.S. Summer Championships back in August, and is set to swim just three events: the 50 free, 50 fly, and 100 fly.

His 50 free race is stacked, led by top seed Jack Alexy and other top-notch sprinters like Jonny Kulow, Santo Condorelli, Hunter Armstrong, Chris Guiliano, and Andrej Barna.

Dressel’s competition pool in the 100 fly than it was when Dressel set the World Record in Tokyo just over four years ago. Rather than Kristof Milak and Noe Ponti, Dressel will be racing against Ilya Kharun, Shaine Casas, and Hubert Kos. In Austin, Dressel is seeded 11th in the 100 fly.

Dressel has not looked like the 2021 version that left no doubt in the pool. This U.S. Open could be a look into the future of what this new Caeleb potentially has in store.

Read the full story on SwimSwam: Five Storylines to Watch at the 2025 U.S. Open Championships