2011 WUG's Day 2 Preview: Tim Phillips' 50 fly; Women's 400 Free Showdown Key Races

Day two start lists are posted on the World University Games result page, and things line up for the Americans to finally break into the gold-medal column with at least one win.

Full Day 2 Start Lists available here.

The USA’s Tim Phillips, who is lined up to be a junior at Ohio State when he returns but is currently training for the Olympics at SwimMAC Carolina, is the top seed in the men’s 50 fly. That’s a real entry time, based on his swim at last year’s Pan Pac Championships. Given the big drop he’s already seen this year in his 100 fly, he’s going to be hard to beat. His biggest challenger should be Japan’s Masayuka Kishida, who is the 2nd-overall seed. Kishida is one of Japan’s best butterfliers, and would have made a huge difference at Worlds for their medley relay that was one leg shy of a gold medal, but he didn’t even earn a roster spot. That makes this meet his big focus, and he’ll be itching to prove that he can be a difference-maker on their Olympic team in the medley.

The women’s 400 free should be a solid race, based on what we saw in the 800 yesterday. Lauren Boyle dropped two seconds in yesterday’s swim from the World championships, and given that, she could chase down top-seeded Melania Costa from Spain. At the same time, Costa, who was 3rd in the 800, is much more comfortable in this shorter race, and shouldn’t be counted out either. The USA’s top contender will be Alyssa Anderson, whose younger sister Haley already has a medal from these Games, as the 3rd seed.

The other race that I’ll be keeping an eye on is the women’s 100 free. Tang Yi, Marieke Guehrer, and Megan Romano. All three had very good anchor legs at the end of day 1’s 400 free relays and looked to be in very good form (and in the case of Guehrer and Romano, top form).

Full list of finals on day 2:

• Men’s 50 fly
• Women’s 400 free
• Men’s 800 free
• Men’s 100 back
• Women’s 200 IM
• Women’s 100 free
• Men’s 400 free relay