Australia's swimming dominance: Small population but big results

SINGAPORE (AP) — Australia has a relatively small population. But Australia is a giant when it comes to competitive swimming. Whether it's the Olympics, or as it is this time with the swimming world championships opening in the pool in Singapore on Sunday, Aussie swimmers grace the podium.

“We have swimming in our DNA as a country,” Rohan Taylor, Australia's head coach, told The Associated Press.

“We have to be particular and purposeful in finding the talent,” he added. "And then it’s the coaching. We can’t get it wrong. We get one crack at the talented athlete.”

Australia won seven gold medals and 18 overall at last year's Paris Olympics, second in both categories to the United States.

The United States has 340 million people, almost 13 times Australia's population of 27 million. The Americans won eight gold and 28 overall.

China, No. 3 with 12 overall, won only two gold medals from a population of 1.4 billion — 52 times Australia's.

Australia's women are swimming powers, led by Kaylee McKeown and Mollie O'Callaghan. Add in Moesha Johnson, who has already won the 10- and 5-kilometer open-water races in Singapore and expects to race the 800 and 1,500 in the pool.

McKeown won the 100 and 200 backstroke in Paris and in Tokyo in 2021. She also won both races two years ago at the worlds in Fukuoka, Japan. O'Callaghan is the defending 200 freestyle winner for Paris.

Then there's men like Kyle Chalmers, who won the 100 free at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and has piled up nine Olympics medals and 12 in world championships.

“They have done so well on the international stage — multiple times,” Taylor said. "So it’s another opportunity for them to add to their CVs.”

For French star Léon Marchand, the world championships mean easing off. He won four individual Olympic gold medals a year ago in Paris. The Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 are still far off.

Time to swim a lighter schedule.

None of that for Canadian Summer McIntosh. She won three individual gold medals in Paris, but will go for five in Singapore, a test run for her program in Los Angeles.

These worlds, a year after the Olympics, feature swimmers in their prime, older swimmers who want to see if they can make it to LA, and young swimmers making their debut.

Another worlds is set for 2027 in Budapest, Hungary — the final proving ground before the 2028 Olympics.

Marchand is expected to race only the 200 and 400 individual medley races in Singapore, dropping the 200 breaststroke and 200 butterfly. He won gold in all four in Paris, but wants to be fresh from the two IM races and world-record shots.

In Singapore, McIntosh will go in the two IMs, the 200 fly, and the 400 and 800 freestyle. She did not swim the 800 free in Paris. This time she will, which sets up a showdown with American superstar Katie Ledecky — maybe the most anticipated race of the worlds.

The eight gold medals that U.S. swimmers won to top the Paris standings was their lowest victory total at the Olympics since the 1988 Seoul Games, when the Americans fell to East Germany. Singapore is the place to regroup and add youth, with the home Los Angeles Olympics in view.

The American men had a tough Olympics with the only gold from Bobby Finke in the 1,500. Look for some new faces in Singapore.

“The average age of our men's team is younger than the average age of our women's team,” U.S. coach Greg Meehan told The AP. He said it was “the first time in recent memory.”

He ran off names like freestylers Jack Alexy, Luke Hobson, and Rex Maurer and Luka Urlando in the butterfly.

“I do acknowledge that the rest of the world is getting better. There is no doubt about it,” Meehan said. “I love a challenge — I'm going to lean into that.”

Familiar names stand out on the women's side — Katie Ledecky, Gretchen Walsh, Torri Huske, Kate Douglass and Regan Smith. Ledecky, of course, is a nine-time Olympic gold medalist and holds world records in the 800 and 1,500 freestyle.

Walsh holds the world record in the 100 fly, and Smith in the 100 backstroke.

Yes. A 12-year-old swimmer named Yu Zidi from China is competing in the world championships, and her incredible times mean she might win a medal. At 12.

Yu has qualified in the 200 and 400 IMs and the 200 fly. Her time of 2:10.63 in the 200 IM was the fastest ever from a 12-year-old swimmer — female or male.

Yu has a best in the 200 fly of 2:06.83 and 4:35.53 in the 400 IM. Both times would have been good enough for fourth place in last year's Olympics.

The Chinese stars are Pan Zhanle, who set a world record of 46.40 in 100 freestyle in Paris, and Qin Haiyang. Qin holds the world record in the 200 breaststroke in 2:05.48.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports

Cuban athletes take photos with the World Aquatics sign in Singapore, Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Elderly visitors pose for photos with the World Aquatics sign in Singapore, Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

FILE - Canada's Summer Mcintosh holds a trophy for the Athlete of the Year at the World Short Course Swimming Championships in Budapest, Hungary, on Dec. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)

Visitors arrive at the venue for the World Aquatics 2025 in Singapore, Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

The main swimming pool is seen at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to meet Thursday at the White House with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose political party is widely considered to have won 2024 elections rejected by then-President Nicolás Maduro before the United States captured him in an audacious military raid this month.

Less than two weeks after U.S. forces seized Maduro and his wife at a heavily guarded compound in Caracas and brought them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges, Trump will host the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado, having already dismissed her credibility to run Venezuela and raised doubts about his stated commitment to backing democratic rule in the country.

“She’s a very nice woman,” Trump told Reuters in an interview about Machado. “I’ve seen her on television. I think we’re just going to talk basics.”

The meeting comes as Trump and his top advisers have signaled their willingness to work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president and along with others in the deposed leader's inner circle remain in charge of day-to-day governmental operations.

Rodríguez herself has adopted a less strident position toward Trump and his “America First” policies toward the Western Hemisphere, saying she plans to continue releasing prisoners detained under Maduro — a move reportedly made at the behest of the Trump administration. Venezuela released several Americans this week.

Trump, a Republican, said Wednesday that he had a “great conversation” with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was ousted.

“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump told reporters. “And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”

In endorsing Rodríguez, Trump has sidelined Machado, who has long been a face of resistance in Venezuela. She had sought to cultivate relationships with Trump and key advisers like Secretary of State Marco Rubio among the American right wing in a political gamble to ally herself with the U.S. government. She also intends to have a meeting in the Senate on Thursday afternoon.

Despite her alliance with Republicans, Trump was quick to snub her following Maduro’s capture. Just hours afterward, Trump said of Machado that “it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”

Machado has steered a careful course to avoid offending Trump, notably after winning last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump coveted. She has since thanked Trump and offered to share the prize with him, a move that has been rejected by the Nobel Institute.

Machado’s whereabouts have been largely unknown since she went into hiding early last year after being briefly detained in Caracas. She briefly reappeared in Oslo, Norway, in December after her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.

The industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the nongovernmental organization she co-founded, Súmate, promoted a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Chávez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Súmate executives were charged with conspiracy.

A year later, she drew the anger of Chávez and his allies again for traveling to Washington to meet President George W. Bush. A photo showing her shaking hands with Bush in the Oval Office lives in the collective memory. Chávez considered Bush an adversary.

Almost two decades later, she marshaled millions of Venezuelans to reject Chávez’s successor, Maduro, for another term in the 2024 election. But ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared him the winner despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. Ensuing anti-government protests ended in a brutal crackdown by state security forces.

Janetsky reported from Mexico City. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

FILE - U.S. President George Bush, right, meets with Maria Corina Machado, executive director of Sumate, a non-governmental organization that defends Venezuelan citizens' political rights, in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, May 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

FILE - Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures to supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, file)