It has not been a surprise that the times at the Indian Ocean International have not been impressive with the meet coming only two weeks after the world championships, but that changed on the final day of competition.
In the 100 freestyle world champion Britta Steffen of Germany annihilated the field by almost three seconds, a field which did include Hungarian Katinka Hosszu, posting a winning time of 52.69. The time is the fifth fastest Steffen has recorded this year and only American Megan Romano has swum a faster (52.48).
Hosszu and Inge Dekker of the Netherlands battled each other one last time in the 50 butterfly Dekker made it close finishing in a time of 26.44, but didn’t have enough speed to beat Hosszu who won the event in a time of 26.24.
Hosszu added three more in the 200 IM (2:10.79), 800 freestyle (8:41.30) and 200 breaststroke (2:28.52)to bring her gold medal count on the weekend to 14.
In the men’s events Florent Hassambay of France won in the 50 butterfly (24.72) and the 100 freestyle (51.29) finishing off an impressive meet where he won five events in total (100 IM, 200 backstroke and 100 butterfly).
Mauritian swimming Darren Chan Chin Wah won the 200 breaststroke in a time of 2:23.98, a time that was four seconds faster than what the 18 year old swam at the world championships.
Other winners on the evening included:
Men’s 200 IM – Thomas Avetand (FRA) – 2:04.90
Men’s 1500 freestyle – Benoit Debast (FRA) – 15:19.27