Shanghai Day 7 Finals: Dekker Pulls Big Upset Over Alshammar

Women’s 50 fly final – Medal Race

Sweden’s Therese Alshammar came in as a big favorite in this race, but exits with still only one gold medal over her 17-year World Championship career, as the Netherlands’ Inge Dekker snuck in at the final touch to steal the gold medal away in 25.71. That’s the Netherlands’ first individual gold medal of the meet, to go with their relay win in the 4×100 free, in a meet where they might’ve hoped to come away with more.

Alshammar ended up touching 2nd in 25.76, for her 4th World Championship medal overall in this 50 fly. In bronze was France’s Melanie Henique in 25.86 for her country’s first ever medal in this 50 fly (and only third butterfly medal overall, men’s or women’s). She was just able to sneak in ahead of Ying Lu and Sara Sjoestrom in 25.87, where those two tied for 4th, and take a medal.

The USA’s Dana Vollmer finished 7th in 26.06.

Full women’s 50 fly final results.

Men’s 50 free final – Medal Race

Cesar Cielo was the fastest swimmer off of the block, and by 15 meters already had a (relatively) huge lead and had put the field behind him. Cielo would go on to a dominant 21.52 win, with Italy’s Luca Dotto finishing 2nd in 21.90.

Alain Bernard of France came up with a great rebound from a mediocre semifinal swim to take the bronze medal in 21.92 and just outtouch Nathan Adrian in 21.93, which means the American men will leave the meet without an individual sprint free medal, and Jessica Hardy seeming to be the only hope left on the women’s side.

As an indication of how important the start is in this 50 free, as though it wasn’t obvious enough, the top two finishers (Cielo and Dotto) had the fastest reaction times in .63. The 7th and 8th place finishers were the two slowest off of the blocks, with Championship Record holder reacting in .69 and Gideon Luow in .71.

Full men’s 50 free final results.

Women’s 50 breaststroke semifinal

Without a 10-minute turnaround off of the 50 free, like she had in the prelims, the USA’s Jessica Hardy was a bit slower in 30.40, but still left no-doubt that she was ahead of the field going into the final. Just behind her were her Trojan Aquatics teammates Rebecca Soni (30.74) and Yuliya Efimova (30.81).

Just outside of those top 3 were the two Australians, with the much younger Leiston Pickett in 20.96, and Leisel Jones in 31.14.

Full women’s 50 breaststroke semifinal results.

Women’s 200 backstroke final – Medal Race

We said after yesterday’s semifinal that it would take a career-best time for anyone to catch the USA’s Missy Franklin, and despite seeing several career-best times from the young field, nobody was even close to the 16-year old American. She ended up winning in 2:05.10, which is the 3rd-best performance ever and another American Record, breaking her swim from the semifinals by 8-tenths.

As I alluded to, the 2nd-4th seeded swimmers each swam not only a career-best time, but they each broke their own National Records! And they still won’t close to Franklin! Belinda Hocking took down her old National and Continental mark by 8-tenths with a silver-medal time of 2:06.06; Sharon van Rouwendaal broke Femke Heemskerk’s old mark by more than a second in 2:07.78 for bronze; and the Daryna Zavina placed 4th in a new Ukrainian Record of 2:07.82, which is her country’s best time by over two seconds.

For Franklin to handle the field, when the rest of the field is at their best, is astonishing. In the leadup to 2012, I think there’s going to be more excitement about what she’s going to do than anyone else in swimming: Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte included.

Women’s 200 backstroke final results.

Men’s 100 fly final – Medal Race

And on the 7th day, Michael Phelps was not yet ready to rest. He slow-paced the first 50 of this 100 fly, but then pulled away from the competition coming off of the turn to blast his way to the finish in 50.71. Even though Phelps’ teammate Ryan Lochte exposed his underwaters a bit when the two were paired head-to-head, Phelps is still far above most of the world, and he showed that in this race. That is a landmark 25th World Championship for Phelps.

Poland’s Konrad Czerniak took his first ever World Championship medal (long or short course) with a silver here in 51.15.That will break his own National Record by nearly a second. In bronze-medal position was the USA’s Tyler McGillin 51.26. McGill played this entire event very well to build each round of the event, despite going times that were as fast as he’s ever gone, and then blew away his personal textile-best to take the bronze.

Just like we saw in the semifinals, Kenya’s Jason Dunford went out faster than anyone else in 23.58 (he’s a 50m specialist), but then came back to finish 4th in 51.59. Australia’s Geoff Huegill was 8th in 52.36.

Full men’s 100 fly final results.

Women’s 50 free semifinals

The Netherlands’ Ranomi Kromowidjojo took the top seed here in 24.56, but Denmark’s Jeanette Ottesen was not far behind in 24.61. If you will recall, Ottesen hung back in the semifinals of the 100, and then posted a huge time drop to take gold in the final. She may have more to go in this 50, as well.

Therese Alshammar, fresh off of a silver medal in the 50 fly, placed 3rd here in 24.63, with Aleksandra Herasimenia in 24.69. With Fran Halsall, Marleen Veldhuis, Jessica Hardy, and Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace all in this final, it’s hard to get a good grasp on who is the true favorite here. Going based strictly on what we’ve seen in other races, Kromowidjojo, Ottesen, and Herasimenia have to be serious contenders.

Full women’s 50 free semifinal results.

Men’s 50 back semifinals

Defending champion Liam Tancock of Great Britain took the top seed in the 50 back in 24.62. Camille Lacourt, after a rough start, finished 2nd in 24.85, but if he can get that cleared up he’s definitely in this race as well. Gerhard Zandberg of South Africa wasn’t as good as he was in the prelims, but is still a contender in 24.91, as is Spain’s Aschwin Wildeboer in 24.99.

The Americans just missed breaking 25 seconds, and tied for the second consecutive round, in 25.03. As was pointed out by our friends at the Reezy Nation, these guys are not making the decisions any easier for the US Coaches as they’ve been nearly identical (or exactly identical) just about every time they’ve competed at this meet.

Flori Lang of Switzerland took 7th in 25.07, and Guy Barnea of Israel, and formerly of Cal, is the 8th qualifier in 25.09. That means only .24 separates 2nd through 8th.

Full 50 back semifinal results.

Women’s 800 freestyle finals – Medal Race

Rebecca Adlington has struggled through some serious jetlag since coming to Shanghai, and it showed a little bit in her earlier races (though she was still pretty good in the 400, she wasn’t as good as many had hoped given the way her season has gone). But in this 800, she not only swam well, she swam MASTERFULLY well to take the gold medal in 8:17.51.

That stands as the 9th-best performance ever, and 2nd in textile only to two swims from Janet Evans in the late 80’s.

Adlington and Denmark’s Lotte Friis, who was the 1500 champion, were never separated by more than three tenths through 650 meters of this race. Headed into the last 50, Friis looked like she was maybe putting this race away and opened up a 7-tenths second lead. But throughout the race, Friis was at a higher tempo to swim the same speed as her British competitor, and that paid off bigtime for Adlington late. She started charging hard with 100 meters to go, and closed her final 50 in 28.91, to push through to her winning mark. Friis took silver in 8:18.20.

Adlington is known to be a fast finisher, but her closing 59.47 over 100 might be the fastest finish I’ve ever seen in this race. So well conditioned is she that she finished this 800 with a closing 50 that would have been the fastest in the women’s 200 race! Overall, a miraculously-played swim from Adlington.

Americans Kate Ziegler (8:23.36) and Chloe Sutton (8:24.05) finished the race in 3rd and 4th, though Ziegler swam the majority of the race comfortably alone in 3rd place. The hard-finishing Sutton will end this meet without a medal, but this was her first season fully-dedicated to pool swimming. That makes this positive finish to the meet a good springboard headed towards London infinitely more experienced.

Full women’s 800 free results.

Women’s 400 medley relay final – Medal Race

With the way that the American women dominated this relay in 3:52.36, you’d think that this would be a race that the Americans have some history. To the contrary, however, this was the United States’ first gold medal in this event since the 1998 World Championships. As Natalie Coughlin pointed out via her Twitter, she’s been on this relay for 10 years, and that’s her first gold medal (they haven’t won since the 2000 Olympics).

And Natalie Coughlin deserves a huge chunk of that credit. She’s had a very up-and-down meet, but ended on a very high note with a 59.12 leadoff time to put the Americans ahead of early World Record pace. She didn’t blow away her competition (Anastasia Zueva of Russia was a 59.13, Jing Zhao of China was a 59.24), but getting to that wall first really set a tone for the whole race. From that point forward, this race was between the Americans and the World Record line. Rebecca Soni opened up a big lead with a 1:04.71 split, Dana Vollmer split an astounding 55.74 on the butterfly, and one more time the amazing Missy Franklin brought them home in a 52.79 anchor.

At the touch, the Americans had a new National Record, but just missed the World Record set by China in 2009 at 3:52.19. The Americans’ back-half was actually much faster than that which set the World Record two years ago. As further evidence of how dominant this American relay was against the field, they had the fastest swim in each of the four strokes.

China’s Yi Tang pulled away from the rest of the field in the freestyle (53.33) to give the Chinese silver in 3:55.61. After a great butterfly leg by Alicia Coutts (56.69), the Australians were able to just hold off the hard charging Russians 3:57.13-3:57.38.

Full women’s 400 medley results.

Full Session Thoughts and Medal Table

This meet just keeps getting better-and-better. From Dekker’s awesome upset in the women’s 50 fly through Missy Franklin’s final touch in the women’s 400 medley, this session was chock-full of excitement, which is usually a given in a session heavy with 50 meter races.

The Americans are well ahead in the medal standings now. Through 33 races, the United States has earned 23 medals, including 12 golds. They are now way ahead of where they were going into the final day in 2009 (8 gold, 6 silver, 5 bronze), though they’re not going to be close to their 2007 haul.

China holds on to second with 4 golds, and the feast-or-famine Brazilians have technically moved into third with three gold medals, and none others.

With 20 nations now holding medals, two more will need to score top-three finishes on the final day to match 2009’s 22 medaling countries.

Full swimming medals table.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States	12	4	7	23
2	China	4	2	7	13
3	Brazil	3	0	0	3
4	Australia	2	7	2	11
5	Italy	2	3	0	5
6	France	2	2	5	9
7	Denmark	2	1	0	3
8	Netherlands	2	0	2	4
9	Great Britain	1	2	0	3
	Russia	1	2	0	3
11	Hungary	1	0	2	3
12	Belarus	1	0	0	1
	Norway	1	0	0	1
	South Korea	1	0	0	1
15	Japan	0	4	1	5
16	Canada	0	2	1	3
17	Poland	0	1	0	1
	Sweden	0	1	0	1
19	Germany	0	0	4	4
20	South Africa	0	0	2	2
Total		35	31	33	99