After Incredible World Cup Performance, Josh Liendo Shooting for Big Finish to Florida Career
He raced at all three stops of the World Cup circuit, but something shifted when Josh Liendo got back on home soil for the third and final stop in Toronto. Liendo had been nowhere close to the front of the sprint butterfly fields during the Carmel and Westmont meets; he had been fourth and then third in the 100 fly, never within a second of victory, and more than a half-second away from the top spot in the 50 fly while taking fourth on both occasions. Switzerland’s Noè Ponti and Liendo’s fellow Canadian Ilya Kharun were the dominant forces in those events.
But in Toronto, Liendo reached peak form as he broke the first world record of his career. In the 100 fly final, he blasted ahead of Ponti and Kharun and quickly pulled away, coming in at 47.68 to clip three hundredths off the mark Ponti set last December. Over the three World Cup meets, he had inexplicably dropped his 100 fly times from 50.20 to 49.56 and finally this record-breaking mark.
“I just thought, come in, have fun, race. Then just to have that result was, you know, cherry on top. I think I knew off the start I knew I was having a good swimming day,” Liendo said. “I used to train in this pool, I know the dimensions, I know what it’s like, I know how to do a turn, it’s like, I’m not missing any turns. Pretty comfortable for me, so I think that helps a lot.”
Minutes after that record, Liendo picked up the win in the 50 freestyle, setting a World Cup record of 20.31. A day later, he grabbed first in the 100 free in 45.30, and both of those sprint successes came against American Jack Alexy, who won medals in both events at the World Championships. And the results were especially noteworthy given that Liendo had not even reached the final in the freestyle events at the series’ first stop. He finished the meet with a third-place finish in the 50 fly, just 0.11 behind Kharun’s winning time.
“I think it just elevates the game when those guys are going that fast week one,” Liendo said of the competitors he was suddenly keeping pace with and beating. “Your mind, your body are just telling you you’ve gotta step up, and I’m just glad I’ve done it here.”
Josh Liendo at the 2025 NCAA Championships — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
The performance over those three days might end up as one of the signature performances of Liendo’s career, one which has already put him among the greats of Canadian men’s swimming. The 22-year-old is already a Commonwealth Games champion, an Olympic silver medalist and five-time medalist at the long course World Championships.
His podium finishes at the 2022 Worlds made him the first Canadian man to earn individual hardware at that meet in seven years, and he was the first Canadian to win a global medal in the men’s 100 fly since Bruce Robertson was champion at the very first edition of the meet in 1973. When Liendo took silver and Kharun bronze in the 100 fly at the Paris Games, it marked the first time ever two Canadian male swimmers had stood on the same Olympic podium.
But for all of that international success, Liendo is even better in the short course pool, as evidenced at the World Cup and through his performances over the past three seasons at the University of Florida. Liendo is a six-time individual NCAA champion and a participant on six national-title-winning relays; a potential seventh first-place relay was nullified last March due to a false start (not by Liendo).
Currently in his final season competing for the Gators, Liendo is leaving behind a case to be considered the top sprinter in Florida history, which would be an enormous accomplishment given that Caeleb Dressel was with the program not too long ago. Dressel took the sprint events to new heights during his incredible collegiate run, but Liendo is not far away from matching his times in the 100-yard fly and 100-yard free.
In the 100 fly, Liendo was second behind Youssef Ramadan at the NCAA Championships as a freshman before winning each of the past two seasons. His 2025 time was 43.06, just a quarter-second away from Dressel’s record of 42.80 that was once considered otherworldly. Time conversions are an inexact science, but his 47.68 short course meters performance from the World Cup converts to exactly 42.80. Liendo has already been sub-44 this season, with a time of 43.87 in Florida’s dual meet against Georgia, and with a few more months of training, perhaps he could get the record.
As for the 100 free, Liendo will go for the four-peat that only one swimmer, Michigan’s Gustavo Borges in the 1990s, has ever successfully completed. Liendo had to survive a nail-biter for title No. 3 last season. Tennessee’s Jordan Crooks had gone 39.83 in prelims, knocking off Dressel’s NCAA record of 39.90, and Crooks led throughout the final, only for Liendo to surge down the stretch and win by seven hundredths, 39.99 to 40.06. Crooks, Alexy and Chris Guiliano have all finished their college careers, but Liendo will need another big performance to hold off the Volunteers’ Gui Caribe, who was third last year in 40.15. Both Liendo and Caribe could swim faster than Crooks’ NCAA mark.
From a team standpoint, Florida took fourth in the national standings last season, and the Gators are favored to maintain or improve that finish despite the graduation of breaststroke star Julian Smith. The team’s 400 medley relay squad crushed the fastest time ever last year with a mark of 3:55.66, with Liendo fueling the team with an eye-popping 42.12 butterfly split, and the Gators won the national title last year by almost three seconds. Relay bookends Jonny Marshall and Alex Painter return while Aleksas Savickas is a capable fill-in on the breaststroke leg. Scotty Buff and Devin Dilger provide sprint depth while the roster has a second superstar performer with the addition of two-time distance freestyle world champion Ahmed Jaouadi.
That group gives head coach Anthony Nesty a wealth of talent to deploy this championship season, and the Gators might show off a taste of their potential when they compete at the midseason Georgia Invitational next weekend. Liendo, of course, is already a proven commodity, and his World Cup results show he is riding a hot streak with the end of his college career looming.
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