15-Year-Old EYOF Queen Katie Shanahan Shows Up On Day 1 Of Geneva Challenge

2020 GENEVA INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGE MEET (CHALLENGE INTERNATIONAL DE GENÉVE)

• Friday, January 17th – Sunday, January 19th
• Centre des Sports des Vernets, Les Acacias
• 50m (LCM)
• Meet Site
• Start List
• Live Results
• Livestream

Day 1 of the 2020 Geneva International saw 3-time European Youth Olympic Festival individual gold medalist Katie Shanahan show up big time.

The British 15-year-old first took the 200m backstroke title for the age group category, powering her way to the wall in a time of 2:13.40. Splitting 1:06.20/1:07.20, Shanahan registered the 2nd fastest time of her career. Her lifetime quickest is represented by the 2:11.20 result she posted in Baku for EYOF gold.

Shanahan stayed in the spotlight in Geneva tonight with a gold in the 200m IM in her age category. The City of Glasgow swimmer put up a solid swim of 2:15.69 to take the younger set’s meet title. She took gold in this event, too, in Baku, where she scored gold in with a PB of 2:14.10.

British teammate Lily Booker of Millfield got it done for gold in the women’s open 50m breast, touching in 32.45 for a new personal best.

Ireland’s Eoin Corby also made some waves in the younger set, taking the age group category’s top prize in the 200m breast in 2:15.20.

The reigning 400m free European Junior Champion Antonio Djakovic took the top prize for the younger set’s race in the 100m free tonight, clocking 51.14.

The men’s open category saw Cayman Islands’ Brett Fraser get to the wall first, registering a time of 49.06. That was after the man notched a new meet record of 48.90 in the prelims, overtaking the previous meet standard of 49.18 set by Frenchman Mehdy Metella last year.

30-year-old Fraser has only been training less than a year after a 4-year hiatus to produce that result. He owns a personal best of 48.54 in the event.

Of note, Fraser beat out notable big guns Alessandro Miressi of Italy (49.38) and Clement Mignon of France (49.98).

Home nation swimmer Noe Ponti showed his dynamic range tonight, first grabbing gold in the 1500m freestyle. He produced a time of 15:44.99 which, along with Ireland’s Junior Record holder Daniel Wiffen (15:47.94), represented the only sub-16:00 efforts of the field.

Ponti doesn’t appear to have swum this event since 2016 when the teen put up a time of 16:29.94. The Swiss swimmer took 50m fly gold at the 2019 European Junior Championships, establishing a Swiss senior national record in the process.

Ponti indeed raced that discipline this evening as well, finishing .05 outside of gold in the 100m fly sprint. Splitting 25.83/28.25, Ponti fell just shy of Giacomo Carini‘s mark of 54.03, which rendered him tonight’s top finisher.

Erik Persson of Sweden manhandled the men’s open 200m breaststroke final, producing a quick 2:11.58. Although that’s well off his own personal best and Swedish national record of 2:07.85, his swim this evening was good enough to obliterate his own meet record of 2:15.28 established just this morning.

Additional Winners:

• Paula Otero of Spain threw down a new personal best in the women’s 400m free to take age group gold. She had never before been under 4:20 in the event but managed to slide under the threshold with an effort of 4:19.99 to register a new meet record for under 18-year-olds.
• It was teammate Alba Herrero who took the open category’s 400m free title, touching in 4:19.19 to just edge out Millfield’s Rachel Anderson and her silver medal-worthy 4:19.41.
• Swiss speedster Roman Mityukov won the men’s 50m back in a time of 25.55, logging the only sub-26 second time of the field. He had earlier taken bronze behind Fraser and Miressi in the men’s 100m free with a time of 49.90.
• Maria Ugolkova topped the women’s open 200m IM race, touching in 2:15.24 tonight. She also reaped gold in the 100m fly in 1:00.56.
• The men’s 400m IM saw Millfield’s Brodie Williams easily beat the field, touching in 4:19.62 to win by almost 9 seconds.
• In the age group race, Marcos Martin became the 400m IM champion, establishing a new meet record of 4:28.00. Williams had held the old mark at 4:28.31 from 2 years ago.