For the second day in a row at the 2015 FINA World Aquatics Championships, a swim-off will be necessary to determine who gets the last spot for a final.
Yesterday, it was Conor Dwyer and Roberto Pavonia facing off to get into the finals of the men’s 200 IM.
At the end of this evening’s session, Hrafnhildur Luthersdottir of Iceland and Jinglin Shi of China will go head-to-head to determine who will earn the right to swim in the women’s 200 breast final tomorrow.
Both swimmers recorded a time of 2:23.06 in today’s semi-finals, with Shi swimming out of the first heat, and Luthersdottir the second. Luthersdottir came into the meet with a seed time of 2:25.39, so she’s been dropping time off of that mark.
Shi meanwhile, had the 4th-fastest time in the world this year coming into the meet, with a 2:22.08 from April. If she can repeat that time, she should be in contention for a medal, should should win this evening’s swim-off.
They have already faced off earlier this week in the final of the 100 breast, where Shi finished in 5th place and Luthersdottir 6th. Both also will be competing in the 50 breast, which will begin on Saturday.
Luthersdottir also swam the 200 IM earlier this meet, but failed to advance out of preliminaries.