2018 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, December 11th – Sunday, December 16th
- Hangzhou, China
- Tennis Centre, Hangzhou Olympic & International Expo Center
- Live Results (Omega)
27-year-old Marco Orsi is keeping his medal hopes alive in Hangzhou, qualifying 2nd behind Russian Kliment Kolesnikov in tonight’s 100m IM semi-finals. After posting one of the three 51-point times of the morning in 51.86 to claim the 3rd seed out of prelims, Orsi stepped things up a notch to produce a mark of 51.42 and move up one spot headed into tomorrow’s main event.
En route to his 2nd seed for the final, Orsi established a new Italian National Record, with his 51.42 outing overtaking the previous mark of 51.57 he set just weeks ago at the Italian National Championships. In that race, Oris split 23.72/27.85, while tonight his strategy included opening in a much quicker 23.00 before backing off on the latter half in 28.42.
Orsi’s 51.42 represented 1 of 4 men under 52 seconds in the semi-final, led by Kolesnikov’s 50.90, then 3rd seeded Michael Andrew of the United States (51.44), Hirmoasa Fujimori of Japan (51.50) and Wang Shun of China (51.92). The Italian is looking for his first individual SC World Championships medal since 2014.