Franca Da Silva was the only man under one-minute this morning at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games in the 100m breaststroke, putting forth a 59.84 effort.
That time matched fellow Brazilian Felipe Lima’s performance from the Maria Lenk Trophy meet this past April. By matching Lima’s time, Da Silva is now also ranked eighth in the world in the 100m breaststroke.
2014-2015 LCM Men 100 Breast
PEATY
57.92WR
| 2 | Cameron VAN DER BURGH | RSA | 58.49 | 08/02 |
| 3 | Giedrius TITENIS | LTU | 58.96 | 08/02 |
| 4 | Ross MURDOCH | GBR | 59.09 | 08/03 |
| 5 | Felipe FRANCA DA SILVA | BRA | 59.21 | 07/17 |
| 6 | Dmitriy BALANDIN | KAZ | 59.38 | 08/02 |
| 7 | Jake PACKARD | AUS | 59.44 | 08/03 |
| 8 | Cody MILLER | USA | 59.51 | 06/19 |
Going out in 27.39, Da Silva was home in 32.45. His front end speed was the real kicker during his race.
To put in perspective just how fast his first 50 was, it would currently rank 13th in the world in the individual 50m breaststroke.
Da Silva will get the chance to race Lima head on tonight during finals where he’s entering as the top seed. Lima was a 1:00.57 this morning to put up the third fastest time of the heats. He looked as though he let up a bit on the last 50.
Although there are plenty of high-level competitors in the race, Da Silva has such a comfortable lead going into finals that he’s the definite favourite. The second fastest performer this morning was Colombia’s Jorge Murillo, and he was over a second and a half behind Da Silva in 1:00.53.
Da Silva is the defending Pan American champion in the 100m breaststroke. His gold from 2011 is the only long course 100m breaststroke international gold of his career.