6TH FINA WORLD JUNIOR SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, August 23 – Monday, August 28, 2017
- 50-Meter Course
- Indianapolis (USA)
- Heats 9:30 am EDT / Semifinals and Finals 6 pm EDT (GMT-4)
- Meet Central
- Meet info
- Schedule
- Entries book
- Omega results
- TV/Webcast schedule (USA)
- Live stream NBC Sports
- Live stream FINA (Heats and finals, for subscribers only. Not available in USA, Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Brazil, South Africa, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Brunei, China)
- Live stream FINA YouTube (Heats only, free of charge)
Traditionally, South American swimming has been more sprint-focused. There have been a few exceptions throughout history, but the distance races have long lagged behind the sprints in international standing.
That tide has been turning in the last 24 months, which was punctuated on Thursday at the World Junior Championships in Indianapolis. There, Argentina’s Delfina Pignatiello, who just turned 17 on April 19th, broke the World Junior Championships meet record, the Argentina National Record, and the South American Continental Record in the women’s 800 free with an 8:25.22. That put her more than 5 seconds faster than silver-medalist Anja Kesely, who took 2nd in 8:30.62.
Pignatiello broke the Argentine record in the 400 free earlier this year in 4:09.97, and very nearly got that mark again with her halfway split on Thursday of 4:10.54. She’ll swim the 400 on Saturday.
The old South American record was held by Venezuela’s Andreina Pinto in 8:25.93. The old Argentine record was an 8:29.86 done by Delfina at Argentina’s National Championships in May.
Pignatiello was born in the year 2000, and as far as we can tell is the 4th-best swimmer born in the 2000s in the race.
- Bingjie Li, China, 8:15.46 (World Junior Record)
- Arianne Titmus, Australia, 8:23.08
- Delfina Pignatiello, Argentina, 8:25.22
South American females have always done better at the world level in distance races. Before the Brazilian 50 backstroker, the best performances at world and Olympic level were by Pinto (400/800 free), Kristel Kobrich (800/1500 free), and Georgina Bardach (400 IM).
I read somewhere Bill Sweetenham was doing some work in Argentina . This looks like something he could foster .
Id be happy to be corrected – just a guess.
I’m team manager of Argentinar and yes you are right he has been helping us for the last couple of years and we are proud to share this with him.however lots of credits for her and coach gallego Martín,and old hound dog that can still bark so well!.he had left coaching for 10 years and returned later to work with some young ones including Delfi.!