Women’s 100 fly final – Medal Race
We didn’t get the World Record scare in this race that Dana Vollmer’s progression might have indicated, but we still got an exhilerating race. Australia’s Alicia Coutts, who entered the race as the top seed, led about every stroke of this race except for the final one. Whereas Schipper appeared to hesitate to line up her touch, Vollmer stayed flat and went for the wall aggressively, and ultimately took the win in 56.87. Coutts touched second in a career-best of 56.94.
Looking historically, this is the 2nd-tightest finish in history of this race, after the 1978 final.
China’s Lu Yang, who is not the Chinese swimmer that most expected to compete for a medal in this 100 fly, took bronze in 57.06. Sarah Sjostrom, who in 2009 was the Champion in this event in a World Record time, looked for a time as though she might medal, but fell a bit short at the finish to take 4th overall.
Among other notable finishers, Great Britain’s Ellen Gandy swam a career-best for 5th in 57.55.
Full women’s 100 fly final results.
Men’s 100 backstroke semifinal
Just like in the prelims, a French backstroker cruised to a top seed in the men’s 100 back semifinal, but this time it was Jeremy Stravius, not the National Record holder Camille Lacourt. Stravius touched the wall at the top of the first heat in 52.76, which is a career-best for him by four-tenths of a second. Lacourt won the 2nd, slower semifinal in 53.09, and will be the 3rd-seed in the final. The scary part is that still neither French swimmer appeared to be working all that hard, which is especially true of the latter swimmer. The only concern now is that they might lose their sharpness by taking it easy through two-straight rounds without either swimmer looking like they’ve had too much of a hard swim. Stravius has an edge in that he swam the 400 free relay, so he has a fast swim under his belt, whereas Lacourt hasn’t really warmed up his jets yet. I smell an upset coming in the final, but both French swimmers definitely have a lot more to give tomorrow.
In between the Frenchmen was Japan’s Ryosuke Irie in 53.05. Irie appeared to extend himself a bit more than his competitors, as he came home faster than anyone else in the field.
The USA’s David Plummer retained the rights to his spot in the American medley relay with his 4th-place finish in 53.30, holding off the 6th-seed Nick Thoman in 53.49. Plummer was followed by Germany’s defending silver-medalist Helge Meeuw in 53.34. Interesting bit about Meeuw is that he is the only medalist from Rome in 2009 to even make the final, and altogether there are 5 new finalists in this race as compared to the last World Championship.
New Zealand continued it’s hot swimming by advancing Gareth Kean to the final in his second National Record in two rounds with a 53.69.
Full Results of the men’s 100 backstroke.
Women’s 100 breaststroke semifinal
After most of the contenders (not named Rebecca Soni) really hung back in the prelim of this race, Leisel Jones made the first pressure in semifinal 1 to go a 1:06.66, which was about a second faster than she was in prelims. Soni, however, answered right back in the final to crack 1:05 in a 1:04.91 and take the top seed into the final. For Soni, this was a predictable textile-best, though I’m sure she still feels like she’s not chasing textile bests, rather is gunning for any-suit bests in the final. Soni took this race out in 30.78, which would compete for a final in the 50, and still was able to back off into a sub-1:05.
For the second-straight round, more than a full second has separated Soni from the rest of the field, and while Jones and 7th seed Yuliya Efimova (1:07.53) look to have a lot more to give, I’m not sure it will be enough. Could be mano-e-mano between Soni and the World Record line in the final.
Also notably moving into the final is the Netherlands’ Moniek Nijhuis. On the Dutch medley relay, Nijhuis (as the breaststroker) was the only swimmer who didn’t appear to be a top-8 swimmer. Now with her finding her pace, the Dutch become real medal contenders in that relay on the last day of the meet. The USA’s Amanda Beard finished 15th overall, and will now focus on the 200, which is her better distance.
Top 5 qualifiers are: Soni (USA 1:04.91), Leisel Jones (Japan 1:06.66), Liping Ji (China 1:07.09), Rikke Pedersen (Denmark 1:07.13), and Ye Sun (1:07.25).
Full women’s 100 breaststroke results.
Men’s 50 fly final – Medal Race
In the men’s 50 fly final, the emotional Cesar Cielo may have excised some of his deamons by taking a big win, his first of the meet, in 23.10. He got off of the blocks hard, and while Australia’s Geoff Huegill appeared to be about one kick too aggressive on his underwater, Cielo had a great breakout to sprint to the lead, and didn’t look back. Cielo’s stroke is the embodiment of the modern 50 butterfly that looks more like a two-armed freestyle than anything else.
After his win, Cielo was in tears for about 30 seconds before he could compose himself to get out of the pool. Cielo is typically emotional after big finals like this, but the pressure had to be even more overbearing in this race after all of the hysterics surrounding his positive test for a banned substance, and the CAS’ subsequent decision to uphold a warning given by his National Federation. The crowd in the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center seemed to be fairly supportive of Cielo overall, though he got mixed reviews from his opponents.
Kenya’s Jason Dunford, in a poor display of sportsmanship, got out of the water and gave Cielo two thumbs-down, but silver-medalist Matt Targett stopped on his way out of the pool, and gave Cielo a rub of support and a congratulations in his ear. While it’s understandable that some swimmers are upset about the outcome of Cielo’s doping case, good sportsmanship is still good sportsmanship, and Targett displayed it while others didn’t. Dunford and Cielo were competitors in college, when the former swam for Stanford and the latter for Auburn.
With all eyes focused on the middle of the pool and Cielo versus Huegill, the other Australian Matt Targett snuck in from an outter lane to steal silver in 23.28. Geoff Huegill won bronze in 23.35, but as is usual he went to the opposite end of the emotional spectrum from Cielo and constantly had a huge grin on his face throughout. It was great to see the wide-range of emotions coming from the top competitors.
French Brothers-in-law Fred Bousquet (23.38) and Florent Manaudou (23.49) finished 4th and 5th, with the elder Bousquet pulling rank over the younger Manaudou.
Women’s 100 backstroke semifinal
Natalie Coughlin is a winner. Natalie Coughlin wins races, and that’s all she does. And anytime us poor swim-writers try and write her off, she reminds us that all she does is win. She took the top seed in 59.38. That clears her previous personal textile-best by .06 from back in 2007. This pretty much confirms that the USA’s final medley relay will be Coughlin – Soni – Vollmer – Franklin, which seems to be an almost unbeatable relay at the moment.
With all of the talk about the rubber suits, it’s hard to believe that a race (not a swimmer, but a whole race) could be as fast as it was in 2009, but by at least one measure, this 100 backstroke already is. In these semifinals, 9 swimmer broke a minute, which is the same number that did so in 2009 in the polyruethane suits. Russia’ Anastasia Zueva took the 2nd-seed in 59.41, which is a typically-fast semifinal swim from her. Still lurking in the final will be China’s Zhao Jing (59.44), the fastest swimmer in 2010 and the fastest-ever textile swimmer; and Emily Seebohm (59.54).
Another National Record was taken by Canada’s Sinead Russell which put her in the 5th seed in 59.68. She’s now cut more than half-a-second off of the previous mark.
Full women’s 100 back prelim results.
Men’s 200 free semifinal
France’s young Yannick Agnel took the top seed after semi-finals in the 200 free in a swift mark of 1:45.62. After charging out hard in yesterday’s 400 final and then fading, it appeared as though this 200 would be his race to get at this meet, which he backed up with this solid swim after looking sluggish in a slow prelim yesterday.
In the 2nd semifinal, Ryan Lochte again almost stopped swimming 5 meters from the wall, and yet he still bested his prelims time with a 1:46.11. This time, however, he defending World Champion nipped him to take the heat and number-two seed in 1:45.93. The unphased-Lochte seemed to be only concerned that he qualified safely through to the final in a decent lane, which he easily accomplished.
Park Tae Hwan (1:46.63) and Michael Phelps (1:46.93) took the 4th and 5th seeds, but might have a bit left. Phelps had a dreadful third 50, the slowest in the field in fact, after having one of the faster swims on the same split in prelims. He seems to be honing in his strategy a bit more now, though the time was very similar, and that could result in a big finals swim.
The finalists were rounded out by USC-trained Dominik Meichtry of Switzerland and a pair of Russians in Nikita Lobintsev and Danila Izotov. Just missing the final was Sebastian Verschuren, who had a brilliant prelims swim. His times indicate that he backed off of his aggressive strategy from prelims, and that seemed to hurt his overall result for a 9th-place finish.
Full men’s 200 free semifinal results.
Women’s 200 IM final – Medal Race
We warned you to look out for China’s Shiwen Ye. When she made the final turn in 5th, behind the world-class group of Kukors, Coutts, and Rice, you probably wrote this off as a three-swimmer race, didn’t you. But while those three battled it out on the left-side of the pool, Ye reminded them all that she’s not only the best closer in this field, but probably the best closer that this race has EVER seen. She came from out of nowhere, on a 29.42 anchor, to win the 200 IM in 2:08.90. That makes her the first woman under 2:09 in textile, and breaks her own textile-best by over four-tenths of a second. In future years, when other swimmers are chasing textile-best splits in this 200 IM, it will have to be considered that though a swimmer might be ahead of the pace through 150 meeters, it will be hard for them to close as fast as Ye just did.
Australia’s Alicia Coutts continued a great meet with her 2nd silver medal of the night in 2:09.00. She and bronze-medalist Ariana Kukors of the US (2:09.12) were also under the old textile-best. Like so many other Americans, Kukors relied on the “5th stroke” – the underwater – to carry her to a comfortable lead through the breaststroke, but a hesitant final turn allowed Coutts just the opening she needed to sneak past Kukors.
Coming up in 4th is defending Olympic Champion Stephanie Rice in 2:09.65. But have no fear rice fans: in 2007, the year before her triple-gold haul in Beijing, Rice was even further (1.3 seconds) back of the champion Katie Hoff, and that didn’t seem to be a problem at all for her the following summer.
Men’s 100 breaststroke final – Medal Race
In a thrilling outcome, Alexander Dale Oen has captured the men’s 100 breaststroke title for his native country Norway in a time of great tumult for him. With thoughts of his fellow citizens back home, who are grieving after an apparent act of domestic terrorism that left 93 people dead. The Norweigian consulate lies about a block from me, and every time I’ve driven past over the last few days with the flag flying at half-staff, I thought about how great it would be if the very-patriotic Dale Oen could pull out a win for his country. It’s not clear how much of a solace or uplift this will be for his country, or if they will even notice, but just as with the Japanese women’s soccer team, I think that we were all Dale Oen fans on this day.
Not only did Dale Oen do just that, but he did it in a powerful way; he took the race in 58.71. That is the fastest-ever swim in textile, the first textile-swim under 59-seconds, and is the 4th-fastest swim in any suit, ever. It only missed Brenton Rickard’s World Record, set in 2009, by .13 seconds. Who would have thought that the biggest World Record scare in the first two days of the meet would come in this breaststroke?
Italy’s Fabio Scozzoli got off to a great start, as a 50-meter specialist would expect to, and though he faded at the end of the race (well, compared to a blistering Dale Oen anyways), he still held on for silver in 59.42. That swim is his highest-ever finish in a major long course event in this 100 breaststroke. He’s going to be very tough to beat in the 50 later on. The bronze went to South Africa’s Cameron van der Burgh in 59.49.
What do all three medalists have in common? They all have Arena as their suit sponsors, which marks a huge boon for the international suit manufacturer as they make inroads into the ever-lucrative American market that is badly in need of a breaststroker at the moment.
Almost as shocking as Dale Oen’s fast time was how slow this final was overall. Kosuke Kitajima, who was the top seed in every level of this race, failed to even break a minute going 1:00.03. It was really surprising, given how fast some of the earlier rounds of this race were, that only three swimmers broke a minute, and neither of them were from the feared Japanes breaststroking group.
The USA’s Mark Gangloff finished 8th in this race in 1:00.52, though he appears to have done more than enough to confirm his spot in the medley relay final.
Men’s 100 breaststroke final results.
Overall Session Wrapup
It was certainly an emotional 2nd day in Shanghai. Cesar Cielo showed a great ability to shut out all of the noise and win the 50 fly: his first final. Alexander Dale Oen showed maybe a bit more to cope with a National tragedy to put up one of the great swims you’ll ever see in the 100 breaststroke. And China’s Shiwen Ye came roaring back at the end of the women’s 200 IM to give the home nation their first non-diving gold medal of the competition.
On the peripheral of those stories, the French are swimming extremely well at this meet. In addition to their great swim for silver in yesterday’s relay, they took the top two seeds headed to the final of tomorrow’s 100 back, and the top seed headed to tomorrow’s 200 free. They might be low on the medal-table now, but look for that to change in a big way in tomorrow’s finals session.
The Australians are also swimming very well, and especially Alicia Coutts with two silvers. Coutts will now get a bit of a break with two days off before beginning the heats of the 100 freestyle on Thursday morning (Wednesday evening American time). It will be interesting to see what she can do in that race when she’s no longer fighting through multiple swims in the same-session, though she’s certainly handled the challenge well.
Medal Table
The Australians are atop the pool-swimming medal table through two days, with that one big gold coming from their 400 free relay. The Americans broke into the gold-medal column today with Vollmer’s win in the 100 fly, as did China.
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Australia |
1 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| 2 |  United States |
1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| 3 |  China |
1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 4 |  Italy |
1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 5 |  Netherlands |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
 South Korea |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
 Norway |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
 Brazil |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 9 |  France |
0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 10 |  Great Britain |
0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 11 |  Germany |
0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 12 |  South Africa |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 8 | 8 | 8 | 24 | |
“That 2:06.15 will have to wait until the first genetically modified swimmers enter into competition.”
People probably said the same thing about the women’s 200 butterfly in the early 80s. 🙂
Phelps never looked good in 200 (fly or free) throughout season. He got beat 3 times in 200 fly while still swimming very fast 51 low 100 fly. It seems he has been focusing (or experimenting?) on sprinting. This showed in the 400 FR where he swam his textile PB of 48.08
But we’ll see for real in the 200 free final.
About WR, if there’s no change in rules/suits, some of those records will last longer than Koch’s 400. Take the women 200 IM WR of 2:06.15 for example. Today, Ye, Coutts, Kukors and Rice threw everything they had in that race (and they are arguably in much better skills, shape and fitness than Kukors/rice in 2009), and yet,… Read more »
For those wondering, here’s how Coutts’ schedule will break down for the Olympics.
http://theswimmerscircle.com/blog/featured/will-coutts-get-relief-at-2012-olympics/
Actually, as far as I can remember, Phelps events were also spread out throughout the 8 days at the Beijing Olympics. He certainly didn’t finish all his events in 2 or 3 days.
And AFAIK, no one here has either asked or expected FINA to be kind to Coutts or other swimmers. People were asking what the schedule is gonna be like in London. And FINA is experienced enough to spread events where many swimmers are usually doubling or tripling in, such as 100 free/fly etc, or 50/100 free or 100/200 breast/back/fly etc.
i dont know why people think fina will be kind to coutts and other swimmers trying to compete in multiple events. phelps did not get any breaks in 2007 or 2008 yet he won 15 gold medals. as far as the records are concerned swimming shot itself in the foot with the rubber suits (just track and field did with some dopers in the 1980s). Some of the 2009 records will last as long as Koch’s 400 meter record has lasted in track and field. there will be some records, perhaps in the breast stroke events. btw i am surprised that lochte and others are beating phelps of the turns. he used to be the king of the turns. the… Read more »
Well, this is how the Chinese system works. They are gold-medal driven and you are supposed to work only on your best event. The reasoning goes if you are only going to make the final, why waste your time and energy? Now that Ye has won the IM event, are they going to develop her talents in 200 free or fix her butterfly/backstroke? On a separate note, now that Sun Yang has failed to win 400, you bet that they will put more focus on his 1500 heading into London. In the Chinese system, you will never find a swimmer with a wide range of events (like Phelps, Lochte, Coutts, Seebohm, Coughlin or Hoff). I wouldn’t be surprised if Zhao… Read more »
This is also what I dont get about chinese swimmers.
Almost all top 200 IMers are also fantastic 200 freestylers: rice, kukors, coutts, coughlin, hoff, hosszu, Belmonte, and going back to Klochkova, etc etc.
And you would think that Ye Shiwen is even more so, judging by her out-of-this-world last 50 in 29+. You would think she has it in her 1:56 at least or 1:55.
So to learn that she was only 2:00 is very bizzarre.
I like how we’re seeing extremely fast swims from events that we didnt expect: w100fly, m100free, m100breast. It makes me believe that one of the WRs we see could possibly a surprising one.
Dale Oen’s swim was definitely a spectacle. He was right on that line until about 80m. If he was in a suit, he probably would’ve taken this record into 57s. With Dale Oen at 27.20 (literally 0.02 off the textile record), he becomes a favorite to medal with gold potential. He could probably be as close to the 50breast WR as he was to the 100 tonight. Theres a chance that the same 3 medalists could also win medals in the 50.
I was a bit confused… Read more »